CollarRedux Season 3
by oflymonddreams
Summary: In an AU America, anyone can be enslaved. Kindly Doctor Wilson is very, very interested in Greg, PPTH's expensive asset. Current chapter: 3.07 "Son of Coma Guy". First and second season also available as CollarRedux.
1. Meaning

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. We're now heading into the third season. There are slaves, House is no longer one of them... or is he? and kindly Doctor Wilson is still very interested... _

**3.01 Meaning**

When Wilson came home, Greg was running on the treadmill. He had been running for some time; he was sweating and looked exhausted. Wilson stopped to admire him and check the exercise program: it still had twenty minutes to go. The attendant from the sports clinic was ready to leave, and Wilson went back out to the hall to get a verbal report from him.

"There's no problem, Doctor. We're late today because he was difficult about his lunch. Did as you said, just told him he'd have to eat it and then waited till he did."

Greg's meals had been planned out for his four-week convalescence. Wilson knew he was bored with them.

"He asked to have the treadmill set to eight miles, and he's doing fine - he's on the cooldown stage right now."

"I'll make sure he does his stretches," Wilson nodded. Greg would go back to work tomorrow - the hospital had consented to his having a full four weeks convalescence at Wilson's apartment, providing Wilson made arrangements to ensure he was properly fed and exercised. "Thanks very much for helping out." He handed over an envelope with a substantial tip. The attendant was being paid via the clinic, but he'd done an excellent job. Like the Greg squad at the hospital, he was tall and strong enough that he could literally pick Greg up and move him against his will, and the clinic dealt with slaves as well as free people, so Clarence was experienced - and he had a nursing qualification. Greg had experienced no complications - both bullet wounds had healed cleanly.

"Pleasure," Clarence nodded. "Any time you need me."

Wilson sat down on the couch and watched as Greg finished the last few minutes of his exercise. He looked fit and healthy: Wilson had bought athletic shorts for him and Wilson could still enjoy looking at his scar, though it no longer hurt Greg and the pain showed no sign of returning. Greg did the full set of stretches under Wilson's eye, and then Wilson sent him through to the bathroom to shower and change into fresh shorts.

"You'll be going back to work tomorrow," Wilson told him.

Greg was eating his dinner. Wilson had originally thought they'd eat the same meals, but he'd got bored with the prescribed convalescent diet well before Greg had. Greg looked up from his plate, still chewing. He looked at Wilson for a minute, chewing, swallowed. "Peachy."

It was the first thing he'd said to Wilson all day. Wilson smiled. "Looking forward to going back?"

"Clinic hours. Hospital food. Crazy patients with guns. What's not to like?"

After dinner, they watched_ Vertigo_. Wilson made a small bowl of popcorn and let Greg have some, his only departure from the planned diet. He liked sitting on the couch with Greg nestled up against his shoulder.

Wilson cuddled Greg to him in the big double bed. Greg had recovered enough to give wonderful blowjobs. He was probably healthy enough to fuck, but Wilson was taking no chances. His plan for prompt, simple discipline had worked too - Greg had never needed to be caned, but he'd got a merited spanking three times. Wilson had taken care to explain to Greg exactly why he was being spanked, and made sure Greg was in a comfortable position for it. Surprisingly, he found that the smacking wasn't all that sexual for himself - he could slap hard enough to make Greg's bottom cheeks go red, but that stung. It was pleasurable afterward, when Greg was subdued, not insolent. Wilson went to sleep contentedly.

The next morning, Greg followed Wilson out to the car, actually looking a bit eager: evidently four weeks off had bored him. He slumped in the corner of the passenger seat as usual, but about three-quarters of the way to the Center, he spoke. "This isn't the way to the hospital."

"No," Wilson agreed. "We have to make a short stop off at the SAC. It's a legal requirement, I would have thought you'd be glad to comply." He glanced sideways at Greg and saw for an instant Greg's face turn towards him, eyes wide and bright blue. Then Greg turned away and hunched up his shoulders, ducking his head. He mumbled something very quietly.

"What?" Wilson asked.

"I said," Greg said, suddenly, loudly, "I'm _ecstatic_." He turned his head violently away and stared out the window. Wilson shrugged and focussed on his driving. Greg was liable to mood swings.

Wilson followed the signs off the highway to the Slave Administration Center: the car park was smaller and emptier than he'd thought. There were no handicapped spots, but he was able to get a place near the entrance. There was an exit to an underground car park, he noticed when he got out of the car: most of the staff must park there. Greg was shivering. He hadn't been out of the house much over the past month - Clarence had taken him for a walk outside in the afternoons when it was sunny. His hands were crooked together over his stomach, a self-comforting response Wilson had noticed in the past when Greg was under stress.

The receptionist on duty didn't smile: she looked Wilson and Greg over as if weighing them up. Wilson came forward, towing Greg by his wrist. "I have an appointment," he said. "Doctor James Wilson." There were two security guards standing behind her, solidly built, carrying taser batons. Greg froze: Wilson could feel his muscles lock.

The receptionist frowned, her hands moving on her keyboard, glancing down at the screen briefly, shaking her head. "I don't have anything under that name - "

Wilson produced the SAC letter, fumbling a bit. He didn't want to let go of Greg's wrist. The receptionist looked at it, frowning. "This isn't - " And then she did smile. "Oh. This is the Princeton-Plainsboro hospital slave? You shouldn't really have come to this entrance. It's no problem," she added, as Wilson began to apologise. "Would you please sit down and wait over there? I'll have someone come and take you to the right place."

Behind them, someone else was coming in - a woman in an expensive business suit. She looked stressed and she'd made a bad job of her makeup. Wilson took Greg's wrist again and steered him over to the short row of chairs by the wall to the right of the door.

The woman walked up to the counter and handed over a letter. The receptionist nodded and told her "Put your hands there - good. Now look into this viewer - good. By the authority vested in me by the state of New Jersey and as a notary public - " There was more, but the security guards were moving to take the woman by the arms, and Wilson realized what she'd meant by this being the wrong entrance. He was embarrassed. The woman was guided to a set of units that looked like a photocopier had mated with an exercise machine: for the last one the guards had to get her to kneel to put her neck in the right place, and when she got up again, she was wearing a plastic collar. She was staggering a bit, and the guards got to sit down on the floor and take off her heeled shoes. She had to deposit her purse and her cellphone and some other items in a large bag - her shoes went in as well - and then the guards took her smoothly through another door behind the units. Wilson rubbed the back of his neck, realizing that he had just seen an ordinary human being becoming a slave. Greg was sitting with his hands folded together on his stomach, his head up, his eyes open, his knees wide. Three more guards had come through the door behind the receptionist, and one of them came over to Wilson.

"I'm sorry, you came in the wrong entrance - we had to get you guest security badges before we can take you through." The badges were large metal plaques on a lanyard. The guard handed one to Wilson, and looped the other over Greg's head. "Can you bring your slave with you? You have to badge him through each door as well."

It was quite a long walk through neutral halls: Greg walked passively with Wilson, as smoothly as if he was on the leash. Eventually they ended up in carpeted hallways with painted walls, and finally, were ushered into an office with carpet on the floor and pictures on the walls, but no windows. There was one guest chair. Greg dropped to his knees, put his hands behind his back, head up: perfect form. Wilson sat down. He was beginning to be a little disturbed by Greg's reaction to this place. The guard stayed, by the door.

A woman came in, apologizing. "Hello, Doctor Wilson - We were expecting you a little earlier."

"I came to the wrong entrance," Wilson apologized.

"Kathryn Coleman," she introduced herself. "I'm a notary public. Thank you for coming all the way over here. It's customary of course to remove the collar here, but we also need to perform a physical and a fitness test when a slave is being released after a serious vandalism incident. Tell your slave to go with Chris, please."

"I'd like to observe the physical," Wilson said. "I'm a doctor."

"I'm sorry, that's not allowed," Coleman said. "It's a legal requirement, I can see your slave is in good health. It should take a maximum of thirty minutes, and you and I can do the necessary administrative work while he's being dealt with."

Wilson glanced down at Greg. He met an astonished, wide blue gaze. "All right," Wilson said, pointing at the guard who he supposed was Chris, "Go with him, do what he tells you. It's just a physical."

Greg got up. He was moving awkwardly. He was shivering. He still looked astonished.

Wilson had told Greg when he came to see him in the ICU that he was being manumitted: he'd told him again when he took Greg home, a day after he woke up from the ketamine coma. They hadn't discussed it during the four weeks Greg had been recovering, but then most of that time Greg had been exhausted or sulking or bitching about the food.

The door closed behind them both, and Coleman opened the folder on her desk. "This is quite a manumission document. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

The manumission document had been drawn up in consultation with the hospital's legal and accountancy staff. It was complex, with multiple clauses. Wilson had to sign or initial each section, four copies. "One to the SAC federal archive, one for our own archive, one for the hospital. The federal archive keeps it permanently, we keep it for fourteen years, the hospital has to keep its copy for at least seven years."

"Four copies?" Wilson asked.

Coleman gave him an odd look. "The freedman gets a copy to keep, too."

Wilson nodded, feeling embarrassed again. Of course Greg would now have the right to hold documents concerning him.

"Will he be working under your supervision?" Coleman asked.

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "Yes," he said. Doctor Cuddy hadn't said if Greg was going to be given normal department head status, but he didn't expect so. For the first year, Greg would be working for minimum wage, and he'd be living in Wilson's apartment.

"I imagine that you think the most difficult thing will be getting the other hospital staff to treat him as a freedman," Coleman said. "In our experience, the chief difficulty is the former slaves re-accustoming themselves to a life in which they have to consider rent, utilities, saving, spending. If he does lose control again and needs to be re-enslaved, you are aware that you will have only the rights of any other creditor?"

"We've planned for that," Wilson said.

Coleman nodded: "I see you have arranged for him to have supervised residence. That's good, but we've known ex-slaves go into debt even with pretty severe supervision of their spending."

"And then they - " Wilson gestured " - come back here?"

"Only if the bailiffs get to them in time," Coleman said. "They don't come in voluntarily the second time. They run, or... they die. If he goes into debt, Doctor Wilson, you need to treat him as a high suicide risk. This is frankly not a good situation for a freedman to be in, working for the same institution that owned him. We'd suggest a transfer of his labour to another institution, would that be possible?"

"Not... acceptable," Wilson said, envisaging Cuddy's reaction if Greg "transferred" to another hospital.

"Well, it's your choice of course," Coleman said agreeably. "He'll be using the name 'Greg House' when he's free?" They went on through the process; it took nearly the whole half hour.

The guard brought Greg back and pushed him to his knees. Greg was still trembling and sweaty: he'd evidently been pushed hard in the fitness test.

Coleman glanced down again at the manumission document. In a clear monotone, she said "By the power invested in me by the state of New Jersey as a notary public, I confirm that the slave 56025498378 has labored to repay his debt and is from today a freedman, having the lawful right to use the name Greg House. The patron of record is Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital." She paused. "Greg House."

Greg's head jerked. He had been staring at Coleman as if frozen.

"You are hereby notified that the status of freedman is permanent but that as a freedman you are subject to summary distraint if you should again fall into debt. Your patron has agreed to retain your labor for the next seven years, and provide you with appropriate maintenance and control for that time." Greg's head jerked round to look at Wilson. Coleman went on with what was obviously a standard script. As she spoke, Greg's gaze turned back to her. "You are bound not to leave the state of New Jersey for the next seven years without the explicit permission of your patron, and should you do so, you will be returned to the Slaves Administration Center and your freedom revoked." She paused again, and smiled. "But I hope that we will never need to see you again. Congratulations on your freedom, Mr House."

"Doctor," Greg said, hoarsely. He struggled, clumsily, to his feet.

"What?" Coleman was holding out a copy of the manumission document to Greg, obviously expecting him to take it.

"Doctor," Greg said. He took hold of the document and held it away from his face so that he could focus on it. He looked up and stared around the room. "I'm... Doctor House."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The hospital lawyers had spent a lot of time drawing up the manumission papers for Greg House. The hospital would still be entitled to the benefits of his labor, at a gradually increasing salary over the next seven years. The first year's salary was minimal: he wouldn't be able to live independently, but Doctor Wilson had agreed to lodge him for the first year at least for a nominal rent.

When slaves owned by the hospital were set free, the process was for their supervisor to give them the manumission papers and for the slave to then be removed as quickly as possible to the New Jersey Slave Administration Center, where the slave's collar could be removed. They had to be released with enough money to save them from immediate destitution: PPTH generally provided them with two sets of clothing and a few other basics besides what they were actually wearing. The usual manumission certificate restricted them to the tri-state area but banned them from the hospital premises and environs.

The hospital freed slaves only if there was both a clear legal mandate - if the slave had worked for long enough to earn back their initial debt - and if the costs of re-selling the slave would be greater than the cost of freeing them. The combination didn't happen often, but PPTH kept slaves in good condition, often for years. Lisa Cuddy had signed off on a few such releases. And there had been Alfredo, but he had simply gone back to his family.

Wilson had escorted Greg to the SAC that morning. They'd advised her that the process of manumission should take less than an hour. Cuddy had told Wilson to bring Greg in at nine-thirty. He was late.

At quarter of ten, they finally came in: Wilson a step ahead, Greg just behind. "Doctor House", Cuddy reminded herself. Legally a free man.

Wilson was apologising for being late, explaining there had been a hold-up at the Center, but Greg stood in the doorway, looking round her office as if he was reminding himself of what it looked like. She hadn't seen him in her office since before he was shot: the last time she'd seen him at all he'd still been in a ketamine coma, still drained and white from the blood loss. He looked healthy - Wilson had done an excellent job supervising his convalescence and rehab.

Greg saw her looking at him, and he lifted his chin. Almost swaggering, he closed the door behind him, walked over to the guest chair he had never sat in, and sat down. "What have you got for me, boss?"

Wilson broke off what he was saying and stared at Greg.

There were three patient files on the desk in front of Cuddy. Greg picked up one of them and began to leaf through it. "This is a Diagnostics patient? What've you been doing with my team while I was gone?"

"You're completely pain free?" He had walked in without limping, his weight evenly on both feet, no need for a cane. "The ketamine treatment can wear off."

"It's been a month," Greg said casually. "It's not wearing off. What have you got for me?" He put the folder down and looked as if he would reach for the other two: Cuddy moved them out of the way. The ketamine treatment could wear off any time in the first six months, and Greg knew it: he had been the one to direct her to the research on pain relief. He looked at her very directly.

Greg had looked at her directly before: always before he had been kneeling in front of her desk, looking up. Sitting in a chair, like a free man - even though the red mark of his collar was visible on his neck - his eyes were on a level with hers. He wasn't hospital equipment: he was her employee. She had supposed a month off would make the change easier, and that Greg would be meeker.

"Why are we having this discussion?" Greg asked. "Want to hear me thank you? Thank you, Doctor Cuddy. Not just for removing the bullet, but thank you for putting me in a ketamine-induced coma and changing my life. Happy?" He paused, a beat, "I am," and lifted his head, turning his chin from side to side, and Cuddy understood suddenly that he was showing her the mark of the collar on his neck. Thanking her for freeing him without saying so. She glanced at Wilson, wondering if he had dealt with this puzzling gratitude, but got nothing.

"Middle-aged man," Cuddy said, "had hair transplant about a month ago - "

"Infection throwing clots," Greg said. He had barely had a minute to look at the file. "You're holding a file for a twenty-six year old female, what have you really got for me?" He picked up the third file and began to look through that - the brain cancer man who had rolled his wheelchair into the family swimming pool.

"Girl was doing an inverted yoga pose," Cuddy said, and Greg looked up again. "Neck snapped, paralyzed from the neck down - " She handed him the file " - except the x-rays show no evidence of spinal injury."

Greg took the file. He grinned, showing all of his teeth. "What about Stephen Hawking trying to do the 500 butterfly?"

"Forget it," Wilson said. He was familiar with this case. "Brain cancer, brain surgery - there's nothing left to diagnose. I would take the other one."

"Hmm..." Greg singsonged, glancing up at Wilson. He bounced to his feet, and grinned at Cuddy again. "I'll take them both. What's my clinic schedule, boss?"

"Ten hours a week," Cuddy said. She'd used part of the huge donation Wilson had secured four weeks ago to fund another full-time nurse practitioner for the clinic - Brenda had been asking for that for years. "Talk to Brenda about your schedule."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson saw Greg leave the clinic at a rapid clip and head towards the stairs. Wilson caught up with him - Greg didn't seem to have seen him - and touched his arm.

Greg whirled round and stepped back - a huge step, like a flinch. "What do you want?"

Wilson pointed at the second patient file. "You don't think he had brain cancer?"

Greg's eyes widened, and it was a perceptible moment before he spoke. "Of _course_ he had brain cancer. Even oncologists don't screw up for eight years."

"So if there's no diagnostic issue why are you taking the case?"

"Treatment can be interesting," Greg said shortly. He started moving again, circling Wilson neatly and heading up the stairs. Wilson followed, annoyed, saying breathlessly "Not to you."

Greg stopped, half a flight up, and looked down at him. "I've changed."

Wilson stopped, to catch his breath. Not because he didn't want to pass Greg on the stairs. Greg was looking down at him with that all-too-familiar, closed-off expression. "No, you haven't."

Greg frowned, briefly. "No," he said. "I haven't."

"Then why are you taking the case?"

In a tone that sounded like Greg was stating the obvious, he said "Guy tried to kill himself."

"Attempted suicide is diagnostically interesting? The guy had brain cancer, he's a lump - for eight years he hasn't been able to touch his wife, speak to his kids - " Wilson broke off. Greg had turned away and was running up the stairs.

After a minute standing gaping up as Greg disappeared, Wilson went slowly back down the stairs, rubbing the crick out of his neck. He hadn't discussed Greg's impending freedom with him because Greg had appeared wholly unwilling to talk with him about anything. But he had made clear to Greg, when he was in the ICU, that once Greg was fully recovered, he was going to be freed. During the past four weeks the only time Greg had even worn a collar was when Clarence had taken him out for exercise, and that was just because it was a legal requirement for a slave in public. Greg really hadn't changed.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Doctor Cuddy had assigned them all to different departments for the duration of Greg's convalescence. Cameron to ER, Foreman to Neurology, Chase had been offered NICU but had asked for a surgical rotation instead. They hadn't seen much of each other - they'd deliberately stayed away from each other inside the hospital.

(After a day in their new posts, they'd met after work for pizza and beers, and to establish the strategic response to the kinds of questions they were all being asked. It was all over the hospital that Doctor Wilson had raised a huge donation which had paid off Greg's remaining debt so that the hospital could legally free him. They knew from past experience that the questioning stopped sooner if all three of them were saying much the same thing in answer - and aside from Cuddy having told them that the department of Diagnostics would continue, none of them had any more answers to give.)

Chase brought in a box of croissants and pastries: Cameron made coffee. Foreman was the one who walked into the back office and reported back that Greg had a brand-new desktop computer but the bunk and storage unit were gone. None of them discussed the huge mark on the carpet where Greg had bled after he was shot.

Chase had wondered how Cuddy would stage Greg's return. Officially it shouldn't make too much difference to them, they'd all as his fellows been supposed to treat him as if he was Doctor House. Now he really was.

Wilson had reacted to all questions, Chase knew, with a smiling bland look of "None of your business" and a polite reply that was meant to make the questioner embarassed. Cameron had asked after Greg early on (she'd told them about it over drinks one night) and Chase had seen Wilson turn other questioners away.

The door opened. Doctor House walked in. "Let's start with the cute paraplegic," he said without other greeting.

"Welcome back!" Cameron said.

Chase stood up. He found himself smiling. Doctor House was standing there without a cane, without a collar. "Hey," he said, really pleased.

House lifted his chin and stared back at them all. Cameron looked as if she wanted to hug him. She and Foreman were looking at House assessingly. "You look..."

"Healthy," Foreman completed the sentence.

Chase realized he actually wanted to hug House. Self-preservation kicked in and he only patted House on the shoulder: he realized even that had been a mistake when House gave him a frowning look, and brushed through them all, dropping two files on the table.

"Quad with no broken neck," House said. "Struck me as odd."

"Uh... you could take a whole two minutes to ease into being back," Cameron offered.

"Four weeks is the standard recommended rehab time for a gunshot wound to the stomach and neck. So, go." House walked over to the fridge, took out one of Foreman's sodas, and chugged it.

"Did you hear what happened to the guy who shot you?" Cameron asked.

"What?" House looked at her, making his eyes wide. "You think he might have shot this patient too? Would explain her symptoms..."

Chase wanted to know what had happened while Greg - House - was off on rehab, too, but it was obvious Cameron wasn't going to get anywhere. "Could be MS," he tossed out. He sat down to look at the folder more thoroughly.

"See, it's not so difficult," House told Cameron. He glanced at Chase. "It's not MS. She had no symptoms before she climbed on to her head. Unless she's been upside-down for the last ten years, MS ain't it."

"Could be transverse myelitis, swelling in the disk choking off nerve function," Foreman offered.

"MRI's negative for that," Chase said.

House was walking round the conference room. He stopped abruptly. Except that he was looking down at the mark on the carpet, with his back to the door, he was standing exactly where he had stood when the gunman shot him four weeks earlier.

Cameron sounded rattled. "The leg looks fine. You totally pain free?"

Greg turned. Now he was facing the door. He lifted his chin. "When did this turn into 'what did you do over your summer vacation?'"

"It's a little weird to discuss the case while you're staring at your blood on the floor," Foreman observed.

"I asked Cuddy to replace the carpet," Cameron said.

Chase hadn't thought of that. He glanced at Cameron, quite respectfully, but Cameron didn't even notice.

"No, I like the carpet," Greg said. He glanced down at the mark on it, again, and then looked at Cameron, moving away from the mark, a step or so nearer to her. His tone of voice was almost friendly. "What did you do over the summer?"

Cameron visibly brightened. "I - "

Quite abruptly, House turned away from her. "Re-do the tests." He walked across to the window. "Let's see if the source of the problem is in the limbs or the spine. Do an EMG."

All three of them exchanged glances. Cameron looked actually disappointed. Foreman shrugged, his mouth curling in the _man's an ass_ expression. Chase shrugged. They were all heading for the door - at least they could talk while they were re-doing all the tests - when House called them back.

He sounded cheerful. "Got a whole other quad to cover; this guy's still got fluid in his lungs."

This was the quadruplegic that had rolled his wheelchair into his own swimming pool.

"You don't think that's from the pool he drank?" Cameron asked. Chase had to agree: this didn't sound like a diagnostics case.

"Give him an O2 mask," House said. "His leg muscles have atrophied, tendons have shortened from disuse causing intense pain. Tendon surgery will make him more comfortable."

Chase blinked. "Comfortable?" Foreman and Cameron looked as astonished as he felt. He'd never, in all of the years he'd worked for Greg - House - he'd never heard House express any concern for the patient's comfort.

House was watching them, Chase realised, and he'd never seen Greg look at them like that before; uncomplicated, secure amusement. "Scoot," House said, and Chase backed off.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Their new patient spelled her given name Caren, but Cameron tried not to be judgemental. She had been working on a headstand pose in yoga and had fallen badly - fortunately at the yoga class, and the instructor had promptly called an ambulance. There was no sign of damage to her back, but Caren didn't seem to have voluntary movement of her legs and lack of sensation which corresponded to a broken neck - but she wasn't having difficulty breathing. The obvious first test, Foreman ruled, was intramuscular EMG - Cameron and Chase would move the patient's limbs to get But he had only just inserted the first conduction pin when he stopped. He wasn't even looking at the screen which would give him a reading on the electrical activity of the muscle at rest.

"She flinched," Foreman said. "Can you feel that?" he asked Caren.

"No," Caren said, sounding honestly puzzled. "What are you doing?"

"I'll get House," Cameron said.

She found him at last in one of the OR observation rooms, watching their other patient have surgery. This hadn't been unusual - Greg was generally off limits for assholes harassing him when he was either at work or could be observed by patients or relatives and the OR observation rooms were good on both counts - but when Cameron thought about it, she was surprised: House was free now, he needn't bother. And the patient's wife and son were in the observation room too.

The wife was hugging her son: they both looked upset. House looked detached as usual. It was hard to believe that he'd argued for surgery just to make the patient more comfortable.

"Sorry," Cameron said politely, "need you."

"Thank you," the woman said, obviously speaking to House, very heartfelt.

The moment the door was closed, Cameron said "We were doing the EMG but we never got past the insertion of the conduction pin. Did she just say thank you?"

"I loaned her some money," House said. "What went wrong?"

Nothing had gone wrong - a flinch wasn't _wrong_ - and Cameron said so.

"Nothing went wrong then something went right."

"You're not going to tell me why she thanked you?" Cameron couldn't remember Greg - Doctor House - ever having a normal patient-doctor interaction. He normally only saw patients when he had to, he spoke little and brusquely, they weren't people to him, they were cases. But then he'd wanted this man to be _comfortable_. "You did something for which she is grateful and you're... embarrassed?"

"For you," House said.

Cameron looked at him.

"Saw you coming up, thought you were a fourteen year old boy, I set her straight," House said.

Cameron stopped. House was teasing her, and she didn't like it. He wanted to know about the unexpected result of the EMG, he could tell her seriously why this patient's wife had thanked him. "I'm not telling you what went wrong - or right, until _you_ tell me why she said thank you."

"Oh you got me," House said. He was smiling. He looked really amused, as if he thought Cameron was funny. "You know I need to know, I'm so going to fold. Except you're forgetting, there's one thing I can do now."

Cameron stared back at him, confused. Was he flirting? He sounded _happy_. Then she saw his face change, his eyes moved from hers - she turned to see what he was seeing, and then she heard him sprint off. There was nothing behind her. Down the hall, House was running - easy, fast, as if he'd never been a cripple, as if he'd never been a slave. Cameron actually laughed herself, watching him.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Foreman had decided that when Doctor House came back to work as a free man, that would be a clean slate: he'd treat Doctor House at all times as he would if things had been different two years ago, and his fellowship had been supervised properly, by a free man and not by a slave. He got rid of the riding-crop he had bought and never used, in a sack of used clothes and books he gave to Goodwill one Saturday. He deliberately put out of his mind the insolent and disrespectful ways Greg had behaved: now House was free, they could have a proper professional relationship.

The young white woman had flinched when he slid the electrode in, though she said she couldn't feel it. Foreman didn't think she was faking, not consciously anyway, but she wasn't experiencing true paralysis: the flinch indicated she could feel pain, and though he couldn't evidence it, he was sure that this was a pseudoparalysis. He planned to explain this to Doctor House when he arrived from seeing the other patient: Cameron had gone off to fetch him, she'd probably explain everything she understood on the way over.

The sound of a man running down the hall interrupted Foreman's careful explanation. House slid to a stop like a runner reaching home base. "What happened?" he asked.

"Okay," Foreman said politely, "This is Doctor House. House, this is Caren - "

"Pleasure's all mine," House said with obvious, brisk insincerity. He wasn't wearing a rolltop, but he was wearing a white coat. He looked like a doctor, at least. "What happened?" he repeated.

"When we inserted the conduction pin," Chase said, "she flinched."

Foreman didn't even look at Chase to express his annoyance. This wasn't a life-or-death situation, there was plenty of time to explain exactly what was going on.

Cameron walked in after House, and House turned to her and said brightly "She flinched! Did you hear?"

"Does that mean I'm getting better?" Caren asked. Pseudoparalysis was not under the patient's conscious control: Foreman didn't doubt that she was genuinely worried.

"How big is a flinch?" House asked, ignoring Caren. "Bigger than a twitch? Smaller than a spasm?"

Chase demonstrated, with a glance at Foreman. Once again the electrode insertion caused a visible flinch.

"You smoke?" House asked Caren.

"Socially, a lot," Caren admitted.

"You do yoga and you smoke?" House said. He sounded as if he was fact-checking. But Caren's admission file had been clear that she smoked three or four cigarettes a day, so House must already be aware of it.

Caren reacted. "I know it's hypocritical but - "

"Not at all," House said. "The world sees your legs, no one's checking out your lungs." He reached for Caren's purse and began checking through it.

Cameron, visibly still thinking this through, asked "How would smoking cause - "

"It wouldn't," House said. "Just needed a lighter." He found Caren's, and went to the foot of the bed. He pulled away the covers over her feet, picked one of her feet up with one hand and flicked the lighter on with the other. Before Foreman could grasp that House really meant to do this, he had flamed the Caren's heel with the lighter, and Caren was screaming and her leg had jerked away. House flipped the lighter off.

"House!" Cameron squawked.

Caren was crying and whimpering "My God, my God...!"

House looked at them all with an almost theatrical expression of disappointment. "The case was looking so promising."

"Hey, I'm not faking," Caren said. She was staring at House. "What's that on your neck?"

"Never mind my neck, what's that on your toes?"

"Nail varnish," Chase said. Caren had painted her toes red and the paint was chipping.

"You moved, therefore you can move. Pseudoparalysis."

"I'm not faking!" Caren protested.

"Foreman!" House said. "Take a look at that big toe. That is not a sexy big toe. You'd never put that in your mouth."

The paint wasn't chipping off, the nails were cracking. The flesh around the nails looked badly bruised.

"What does pseudoparalysis and an ugly toe say to you?" House asked.

Foreman gaped. He looked down at Caren, suddenly putting all the pieces together. "Caren, when was the last time you drank orange juice?"

"I don't do fruit juice," Caren said. "Too much sugar. I'm on this great diet, lots of protein, lots of - "

"No Vitamin C," Foreman said. He looked up at House. "Scurvy."

"Great diet," House said cheerfully. "Get this lunatic out of here." He turned on his heel and was gone.

"Scurvy?" Caren asked, patently bewildered.

Foreman was feeling benignly pleased with himself. He'd figured out the pseudoparalysis, and he'd known what House was driving at while Chase and Cameron plodded along behind. They'd both gone away - to find a new case, now one patient was being operated on and the other was in recovery - so that gave Foreman a relaxed amount of time to explain to Caren just what was wrong with her and how to fix it: he ordered two pints of orange juice from the kitchens and made Caren drink them slowly through a straw, as she couldn't yet move her arms.

"Like what sailors get when they don't eat right?"

"Aye, aye," Foreman said cheerfully. "Your arms and leg tissues are choked with blood. Makes it hard to move. Also damages your hair and toenails."

"Well... thank you. And thank Doctor House," Caren said. She finished the first pint of orange juice and Foreman picked up the second cup.

"Send him a note," Foreman suggested, and held the straw to her mouth. She'd be better soon. And he was going to get along just fine with Doctor House.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Just after six, Wilson went over to Diagnostics. Greg was sitting in his Eames chair. He was wearing the steel-rimmed reading glasses that Wilson had bought for him, and studying a medical journal: there was a stack of unread journals on his desk, and a smaller stack on the floor beside his chair.

"Got a patient," Greg said.

"You can't stay here," Wilson pointed out.

Greg glanced over at the empty place where his bunk had been, almost involuntarily. He looked back at Wilson. "Can if I want," he said.

"Your other patient is being discharged tomorrow after surgery to relieve the pain in his legs," Wilson said. "There's no mystery to solve. And you solved your first patient's problems in record time, I understand."

Greg shrugged.

"You're not a slave any more," Wilson said. "You don't have a bunk here, or clothes, or free meals or free laundry. I understand that it's a huge change for you, but - "

"I don't have to go home with you," Greg interrupted. He lifted his chin, meeting Wilson's eyes. The mark on his neck from the heavy collar was very obvious to Wilson, and he couldn't stop himself for staring for a moment before he spoke.

"I heard you were watching surgery with a patient's family. Talking to a patient's family."

"Yeah."

"You took a case with no mystery. Something any doctor could do. A case with no upside except the satisfaction of helping another human being."

"Yeah," Greg said, and added, after a moment, "She thanked me." He sounded... almost bewildered.

Wilson hesitated, looking at him. He himself had had the bewildering experience - and more than once - of telling a patient that they were going to die, and the patient's first response being to thank Wilson. For what, he had never been sure. He was familiar with this case: a long-term brain cancer survivor. The damage caused by the series of operations to save his life, had been extreme. The surgery Greg had proposed would make the man feel more comfortable in the long run, but it was really uncertain how much the man himself would know it. Greg must know that.

There was no reason for Greg to stay here tonight, but if he experienced just a bit of discomfort, realised how awkward it would be for him to stay at the hospital when he had no slave quarters or slave rations or laundry, that ought to convince him to be sensible and come home tomorrow night. Wilson let go of the comfortable prospect of a blowjob tonight, and smiled, with conscious kindness.

"All right," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The clinic doors opened at eight in the morning. Brenda Previn was usually there by seven. She hadn't expected to find Greg already here, though he was working the eight to ten shift Monday to Friday: Doctor Wilson usually delivered him to the clinic just before the doors opened.

Greg was sitting behind the reception desk. The coffeemaker was on - Greg had helped himself to a cup already. He was allowed to do that, but he eyed her warily as she walked round the desk and stood behind him, looking at his work: he was reading a patient file, someone who'd had extensive brain surgery. Not a clinic patient.

"You're early," Brenda commented. She put a hand down on Greg's notes, and felt miniscule grit of crumbs and a slight stickiness: Greg had been taking cookies from the jar. He mostly only stole them when he was hungry, and she mostly overlooked it.

"I didn't have breakfast," Greg said.

"You're wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday."

"I showered." He folded his hands together across his stomach and looked at her. He was speaking quite meekly, but there was something about his look that had changed. He was free now.

Brenda glanced at the big clock on the wall: Lisa should be in her office by now, dealing with the first tide of emails and drinking her first cup of coffee. She wouldn't appreciate being interrupted.

Too bad.

Brenda had brought an extra sandwich for lunch: she usually did on days when Greg was working in the clinic. She handed it to him now. "Eat that, put that file away, and make sure all of the exam rooms are ready for when the doors open."

"Yes, boss," Greg said, pleasantly, and sank his teeth into the sandwich. Brenda eyed him: but she knew he could do the early morning setup work as well as she could. She left the clinic and walked across the foyer.

Lisa wasn't pleased. "He's supposed to be staying with Wilson. He doesn't have a case."

"Isn't he getting paid now?"

"He'll get his first pay check at the end of this month."

That was more than three weeks off. Brenda raised her eyebrows and said so. "I let him have one of my sandwiches for breakfast, but - "

"Wilson agreed to support him," Lisa said. "I'll make sure he knows that. There shouldn't be a problem - if he really needs to stay here overnight, he'll have access to a locker to keep a spare set of clothes. I've lined up several appointments for him this week for administration staff to get these things sorted out."

"I'll tell him," Brenda allowed.

"Thanks," Lisa said dryly. She hesitated. "How is this working out in the clinic?"

"Fine," Brenda said honestly. "He came in yesterday, logged two hours, saw his usual number of patients, no complaints. He looks healthier than I've seen him for years, and I've always insisted the clinic staff treat him just like any other doctor when he was working there."

Back in the clinic, Greg had finished the sandwich, helped himself to a second cup of coffee, and was still reading the patient file. He looked up as Brenda came in, and looked back down at the file.

Brenda walked over, took the file away from him, and said crisply "Get started," or that's what she'd meant to happen: Greg pulled the file away from under her hands, and sat there, holding it to him, looking up at her.

"Greg," Brenda said warningly.

"You check the exam rooms," Greg said. He lifted his chin and looked back at her.

Brenda stared at him.

"Not my job," Greg said. Brenda saw him swallow, hard, but his voice stayed level. "I'll start work when the doors open."

Brenda stared. She glanced at the glass doors into the hospital foyer: she could see the security station from here. She couldn't send him down to the basement: he wasn't a slave. She looked back at Greg, and he smiled at her, showing all of his teeth. He didn't say anything else, but then, he didn't have to. After a moment, he opened the file to look at it again.

The door pushed open and Wendy Miller came in, the new nurse practitioner. Brenda supposed she could have got security guards to remove Greg from the clinic, but she didn't want to do that in front of Wendy. She'd warn the security staff not to let Greg into the clinic before she arrived, if he was going to act like this. "Doctor Cuddy let me know you're supposed to be staying with Doctor Wilson," Brenda said. "You've got appointments with admin staff this week, make sure you keep them." Brenda turned sharply away from him.

She was more annoyed than she would care to show: after all, when Lisa told her that she'd let Doctor Wilson do a fundraising drive for the remainder of Greg's depreciation, she had set up a donations box in the clinic and sourced a good photo of Greg to make sure it was conspicuous. Not that Brenda really thought Lisa would have set out to cheat on the deal, but the photo and donations in the clinic had made sure that most of the staff and quite a few of the clinic regulars and other patients knew what the deal was.

"Come on," she said to Wendy, abruptly, "you check exam room one, I'll do the others."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

They had been working solidly on the brain cancer guy's medical records since he was first diagnosed eight years ago. It was a long shot, Foreman conceded, but if House thought he'd heard the man say something (even if it had sounded like a grunt) he was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. In any case it was a valuable Diagnostics task, to look over the whole body of records and see if there was a pattern. He'd missed this in Neurology.

"2002, patient had dry eyes," he noted.

"Dry eyes plus a grunt, it all makes sense," Chase said.

"He had neurological issues," Foreman said.

"I get hay fever, I put drops in my eyes, I don't go to a neurologist," Cameron said.

Foreman didn't quite sigh. Chase was lazy, and Cameron was on edge. He kind of hoped Cameron would make a pass at House and either get turned down or get scared off by Wilson, and hopefully that would be the end of it. At least Chase being lazy was usual. "Dry eyes could indicate an autonomic dysfunction; goes on the board."

"What about coughing or boogers?" Chase asked. "Should we include boogers?"

"I'm happy we're doing this," Foreman told them. "I'd much rather do this than lengthen some guy's tendon. Patient's headaches increased. Doc scanned his head, found a tumor."

"You like wasting your time?" Cameron asked.

"I'm learning," Foreman told her.

"To do what? Reconsider solved cases because you don't want to deal with the real world? He's pushing when there's nothing."

Four weeks away from Cameron, Foreman felt, had made him appreciate her good points as well as her weak points. Ultimately he'd be heading up his own Diagnostics department. He wouldn't be hiring anyone like Cameron or Chase, not that House had much of a choice about who he could hire. "Cameron, you are an excellent doctor, you'll get lots of tearful thank yous from grateful patients," he told her.

Cameron didn't look all that happy. "Yeah, am I such a bitch for wanting that?"

"No," Foreman conceded equably, "it's not a bad thing, but it's not why I'm here. I took this fellowship to learn from House."

"He's teaching you to be a masochist," Cameron muttered. Foreman only smiled.

"Dry eyes," Chase said wearily, "goes on the board."

At ten o'clock, Foreman had the 214 symptoms they'd catalogued from eight years of medical records listed on sheets of paper all over the conference table, in some sort of sensible order. Most of the symptoms had repeated, often more than once.

They weren't used to House's new step, at least Foreman wasn't, nor to the speed with which he could now move. The door swung open and House walked in, and didn't bother to say hello or well done: he just asked "Any patterns?"

"Fever plus frequent urination could mean prostatitis," Chase got in first.

"Or a urinary tract infection," Foreman came in smoothly.

"White count was normal, no infection," Chase said.

"If you add pain into the mix," Foreman said - the patient obviously wouldn't have been able to report pain since his brain operation - " then fever, frequent urination could indicate a kidney problem."

"I like it," House said. Foreman kept himself from smiling. It wasn't often that House said something like that.

"No," Chase said, "creatinine and BUN were both normal."

House glanced at Chase. "Not the kidney part," he said, dismissing Foreman's best theory, "the pain part. Abdominal pain plus all that stuff could equal a pancreatic cyst."

"Perfect," Cameron said, "you managed to pick the one symptom he never had. Abdominal pain."

"It's the first symptom on the board," House said. He pointed. He had written it down himself yesterday. "Grunt."

At no point had House ever indicated, yesterday, that he thought the patient had grunted because he was in pain. He'd claimed he thought the patient was _speaking_. Foreman was actually pleased to have Cameron be the one to say "Grunting isn't pathognomonic for abdominal pain!"

"No," House said, in the tone of voice he used to indicate everyone else was an idiot. "Traditional diagnostic marker is compression of the diaphragm, vibration of the larynx leading to the audible sound 'I have a pain in my abdomen'."

"Richard's symptoms are culled from eight years of medical history," Cameron said. "They're _not patterned_. These are random individual events over time."

"Illnesses have incubation periods," House said. "Do an upper endoscopic ultrasound."

Foreman hated it when he found himself agreeing with Cameron. His best theory for tying any of the symptoms together had been some kind of kidney problem. House had just shot that down and come up with something new out of thin air and now he was proposing a test that was not just pointless but actually _dangerous_.

"His throat will collapse, muscle degeneration in his neck won't tolerate the scope, it's an automatic trach!"

House put on a fake-shocked voice. "You're talking about him like he's an invalid."

"Yeah, we're insensitive," Chase said dryly.

"Does he drool?" House said. "Can he hold his neck straight? Does he choke on his food? His neck's fine, his throat's not going to collapse. Cameron, get consent from the wife."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Arlene agreed almost too easily to sign the consent form. "Doctor House thinks this would help him?" she said, in the middle of Cameron's cautious explanation. "All right."

Cameron was heading back to Diagnostics when she saw House, through one of the glass walls that made the new part of PPTH such a confusing maze: for once, she was pretty sure he hadn't seen her. He was heading for the post-op ward. Her pager beeped: Doctor Cuddy, wanting to speak to House. Cameron followed him.

It seemed he just meant to do the usual post-op checks: he was listening to the patient's heart rate with a stethoscope, which he'd probably borrowed from Chase or Foreman.

"His heart rate's a little high," House said.

"Should I be worried?" Arlene asked.

"Probably just means he's still in discomfort from the surgery. I'm going to up his morphine a little."

"You've been so nice to us," Arlene said spontaneously.

House sounded almost confused. "That's the job."

"No, I mean all the other doctors, all they did was obsess on the... the cancer, the treatment, the damage... just trying to fix him. You're the first doctor that's ever given a damn about the quality of his life."

"His heart rate's come down," House said. "The morphine worked. I was right." He turned and looked directly at Cameron, standing in the hall outside, and she wondered suddenly how long he'd known she was there. He walked out of the room quickly, glancing at her as she joined him.

They walked down the hall side by side: House had a long stride and he wasn't making any concessions to Cameron. He didn't say anything. Cameron had to wonder if this was what House would have been like if he hadn't been a slave, if he had been seeing patients like a normal doctor - but he couldn't ever have been a normal doctor, could he?

"What a touching moment," Cameron said. It was exactly what House would have said to her, mocking her, if a patient had said that to her. "That's why we become doctors. For those rare moments when our hearts are warm - "

House stopped. "Would you like to get a drink?" he interrupted her.

"Are you serious or are you just trying to change the subject?" Cameron was confused and pleased. She smiled at him.

"No, I'm serious," House said. He started walking again, this time matching his stride to hers. "I drink, you drink. We could do it at the same time, same table. Do you eat? We could do that too." They reached the elevators, House pressed the down button. "I mean, if the answer's no that's cool but..." He waited, looking at her.

"No," Cameron said, outright confused. She'd thought she wanted to tag Greg, and some part of her still wished she had. This was different. What would an actual relationship with Doctor House be like? "I... it's just... you're just coming off the surgery and you're not yourself yet and I work for you and even though last year's..."

She trailed off in frustration. House was smiling. He looked smug.

"...you're smiling! I'm saying no and you're smiling!"

"Oh, don't take it personally," House said. "It's just because you're full of crap. You have no interest in going out with me. Maybe you did, when I couldn't walk and I was a sick puppy that you could take out of the pound and nurture back to health. Now that I'm free and healthy, there's nothing in it for you."

The elevator had arrived. Two people Cameron knew got out, a doctor from ER and a nurse she worked with from the clinic. Both of them looked at her oddly. They were in the middle of the hall. How many other people had just heard what House said? Had House picked that moment to say it just to embarrass her, to humiliate her?

"You are not healthy," Cameron said. House was still smiling. "Cuddy wants to see you." She turned and walked away.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Cuddy sent a message to Cameron to get Greg to her office: less efficient than sending a couple of security guards, but she didn't want them to lose track of the fact that Doctor House wasn't a slave any more. He arrived at her office late, looking unruffled.

"You've been back at work twenty-four hours and you're performing a pointless ultrasound down the throat of brain cancer survivor."

Greg sat down in the guest chair and raised his eyebrows. "Who won the pool?"

"You have no evidence that there's any further problem."

"What's the worst that can happen? Cameron got his wife's consent."

"You haven't got mine. And unless you actually have a reason to stay in the hospital overnight, you're to go home with Doctor Wilson in future."

There was a pause. Greg - Doctor House - sat still in the guest chair, looking back at her. "Fine," he said at last. "I'll go back with Wilson. If you'll let me do the endoscopy."

"What?" Cuddy was actually mildly amused. "You want a trade? We're not swapping a couple of goats for your help putting up a barn."

"You want something, I want something." Greg's hands moved together across his stomach. "We compromise. It's the grown-up way to resolve our differences."

"There already is a mechanism for that. It's called the employer-employee relationship. I get what I want, and you don't." Cuddy lifted her hand. "You can go now. Your other patient is due to go home tomorrow. If you can think of any non-invasive, _safe_ tests you can perform on him before then, knock yourself out. I'll remind Wilson that he's not to leave you here overnight again."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Greg was silent on the drive home. There had at least not been any arguments about whether he was leaving with Wilson.

The door closed behind them, and Wilson turned to Greg, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay," he said, and was about to go on, to suggest a favorite take-out Chinese now Greg was off his convalescent diet, but Greg had walked away. He was standing outside the door to the slave's room.

"Where are you going?" Wilson asked.

"I get to sleep here," Greg said. He walked in and closed the door behind him.

Wilson stood in the hall looking at the closed door. The slave quarters had been left empty since he got rid of Lady. There was just a double bunk: probably not even long enough for Greg to rest on comfortably. There was a washroom, but it just had a shower, no tub.

This was certainly just an equivalent of Greg sitting down by the door. He'd come out when the food arrived. Wilson ordered a banquet for two.

He ate half of it, taking his time, watching a Hitchcock movie, waiting for Greg to appear. Either the TV or the food should make Greg appear. The food stayed on the table, getting cold, and Wilson ate more of it than he'd intended, until the end of the movie rolled on to the screen and he realised that Greg had now spent at least three hours in slave quarters.

Of course the door couldn't be locked from the inside. Wilson went into his own bedroom and ran a bath - he'd give Greg a long hot soak in the tub before he took him to bed, and hand-feed him in bed since Greg had nothing to eat since the brown-bag lunch he'd brought him nine hours ago.

There were toiletries missing from the bathroom - a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap. A towel was gone from the rail. Suspicious, Wilson checked the bedroom: one of the blankets was missing off the bed, and so was a set of Greg's clothing from the closet.

When Wilson came out into the hall, he saw the door into the slave quarters closing.

Greg had taken both mattresses off the bunk and stacked them by the wall under the heater. He was sitting on them with a blanket wrapped round his shoulders, eating from a carton with a pair of chopsticks from the take-out place. He didn't move or stop eating when Wilson came in.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"Cuddy said I had to stay with you," Greg said. "Figured she didn't mean I had to starve."

"You can't be planning to sleep in here," Wilson said. "Come through, I've got a nice hot bath ready."

"Got a shower in here. Do you want the towel back?"

"I want you to come through and sleep in a proper bed."

Greg shrugged. He lifted more food into his mouth with the chopsticks. His lips closed around the bite of food. He swallowed, and said to Wilson "Good night."

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck again. This was really absurd. What was really annoying was that he wanted a blow-job very much - in fact, now that Greg was evidently really well again, he wanted to fuck Greg, and he knew Greg must be missing it as much as he was: Greg got desperate for an orgasm when he was fucked, completely incoherent. But he couldn't physically drag Greg from this uncomfortable bed he'd made for himself and make him sleep in the nice big comfortable bed with Wilson. So he'd just have to wait until Greg was ready to admit what he was missing. "All right," he said finally. "Good night."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The thing about working for House for years, you got used to it: he was right. Even when you thought he was wrong, he was probably right. If he thought there was something to this case besides brain cancer, and was messing around with tendon-lengthening operations just to give himself time to find it, he was probably right. Cameron could snark (and she'd been surprisingly snarky about this ever since House got back: probably the lighter under the girl's foot had struck her as just too much) but there was something here.

On the other hand Chase didn't see any point in throwing his full efforts into finding it, like Foreman, because_ they_ wouldn't. Foreman wanted to _be_ House, and that just wasn't going to happen.

Arlene McNeil didn't mind what tests they performed because she'd come to the altogether sane conclusion that her husband couldn't get worse and he might get better - or he might die. She'd been looking after a man who could barely move, who probably didn't have much brain function left. She wouldn't quit, but she'd got to the point where if he got pneumonia she'd likely suggest he didn't get antibiotics. Chase didn't doubt she still loved him.

The MRI of Richard McNeil's brain had shown it fairly healthy, for a long-term cancer survivor. House had put the scans up over the entire Diagnostics conference room, and when they all came back to report that the surgical repair of the meninges had been successful, he was sitting in the middle of the room staring at them.

"You're lucky he didn't die," Cameron told him, diving into the end of Chase's report on the operation.

House looked at her. "I'm lucky? He's the one who didn't die."

"We told you he'd hemorrhage."

"Told me he'd bleed into his brain, not out of his ear," House dismissed, still staring at the MRI.

"You've got to drop this," Cameron told him.

"We're missing something," House said.

"We did a dangerous test," Foreman said, "and something bad happened, that's all this is."

House got Foreman to walk him through all of the scans, identifying each scar and mark. Cameron protested pointlessly: House wasn't listening.

"Re-do every blood test he's ever had. Re-scan his head."

"No," Cameron said, and House did look at her then, turning round. Cameron stood her ground. "He's been sick and suffering for eight years, I'm not going to help you make it worse; I'm not going to help you make it interesting."

House shrugged. "That's okay, Foreman's better at that stuff than you are." He looked at Foreman. "We need 5mm cuts through the occipital and hypothalamic regions."

Foreman never showed much emotion in his face, but from his voice he was disgusted to be agreeing with Cameron. "No."

All three of them were looking at Chase. For a moment, Chase considered joining the other two: Doctor Cuddy still signed his pay checks. But he still thought that if House had enough information, he'd probably be able to work out what it was. And besides... Arlene McNeil had made clear what she felt, to Chase, at least. "How many millimeters?" he asked.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Cuddy's personal assistant came in. "The... I mean, Doctor Greg - "

"Doctor House," Cuddy corrected. The door opened again and Greg came in, brushing past her assistant as if he wasn't there, saying "You rang?"

Cuddy nodded her assistant away. It would probably be faster to deal with Greg now. The patient he'd claimed on his first day was now finally being discharged.

"I can help him." Greg was talking fast but clearly. "The suicide attempt was not a suicide attempt; he drove that wheelchair into the pool because he couldn't regulate his body temperature. He had hypothalamic dysregulation. Circumventricular system sends his cytokines, releasing the early stages of the immune response but CDOS releases prostaglandins that reset the hypothalamic set point upward, unless it's countered by antipruritic therapy. His brain's on fire." He came to a halt.

Cuddy waited. "That's it? And you discovered this - how?"

"Wilson's spare bedroom has no air conditioning. I had a cold shower this morning. Felt good." House was staring at her, his eyes wide. "I can cure him."

"Cure him? Fixing hypothalamic dysregulation isn't going to regenerate brain."

"No, but if the scar tissue on his hypothalamus is resting against the pituitary, the adrenals would shut down. Addison's disease."

"You didn't see any scar tissue on his MRI, his CT scan - " If he had seen it, he would say so.

"His brain is functional," House said.

Cuddy had taken a look at the patient's vitals before signing off the discharge. "His temperature's normal. There is nothing wrong with his hypothalamus or his pituitary."

"I can make him walk," House said, urgently. "I can make him talk!"

"That's your argument?" Cuddy asked.

There was a pause. "Seems like a good one," House said finally.

On the face of it, there was no harm in an injection of cortisol. But there was no point in going on with this forever. Richard McNeil had a lifetime cap on his health insurance. He hadn't reached it yet, but he would, and sooner rather than later if Cuddy let House go on trying one thing after another.

"If I thought for a second you wanted to help him, you'd have carte blanche. You're doing this because it's fun."

House waited for a moment. He looked away. "My motives have nothing to do with the case."

"Your motives have everything to do with your judgment."

"For the first time in years I'm not in pain, I've got no opiates in my body,_ now_ you question my judgment."

"This is a wild guess! That came to you because you had a cold shower this morning."

"Inject him with cortisol. The guy will have sex with his wife again, he'll hug his kid again. Hopefully that's the combination he was using, it'd be a shame if I'd cured a pedophile."

Cuddy shook her head, refusing to smile. "This is a theory that ties your case up in a neat little bow but you don't have a lick of substantiating proof. No."

"Your decision doesn't make any sense. There is no risk to a cortisol injection. If I'm wrong, big deal. He goes home a vegetable like he already is, but if I'm right - "

"This isn't about downsides or risk management. There are no details, you've a hunch. That patient doesn't exist for your whims. As of 4pm this afternoon, I'm sending your patient home. And you have an appointment with the payroll department this afternoon."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

At five o'clock, or whenever Greg got back from seeing the payroll department, Wilson planned to go home. Greg would get bored sitting in that room by himself with nothing to read and nothing to do all evening.

He was startled when Doctor Cuddy came in. "Is there a problem?"

"No," Cuddy said. "I meant to - " She glanced back at Diagnostics, as if through the wall of Wilson's office. "Richard McNeil was discharged today. He was recovered from his surgeries, enough to recover at home, at least."

"Yes?" Wilson asked.

"House suggested a new diagnosis this morning. Addison's disease. He wanted to inject his patient with cortisol. Of course I said no, there was no evidence, he had no reason, it was a hunch - "

Wilson nodded.

"But I did. I injected cortisol. And before he left the hospital, he was _better_. He was moving voluntarily, he was clearly understanding what was said to him - House was right. It was Addison's." She stood still, looking quite unlike the slightly distant administrator. She looked astonished. "House was _right_."

She'd never called him "House" before. Not in Wilson's hearing. There were rumours that Doctor Cuddy had known Greg before he was enslaved, had bought him originally for more personal reasons, but Wilson had never believed them. They had both gone to Michigin, but -

"You plan to _tell_ Greg?" Wilson asked. "You can't."

"I have to tell him. He was right!"

"Why did you do it? Why did you think he might be right?"

Cuddy stared at him. "Because he's House?"

"Medically, what made you think he was right?" Wilson asked.

"Nothing," Cuddy said.

"He got lucky, that's all that happened," Wilson said. "Telling him no was a good thing because next time he won't get lucky, he'll kill someone. Just because he was right doesn't mean he wasn't wrong." He knew his rationale was correct.

Cuddy shook her head. "I see him every day, I can't just..."

"Everybody lies," Wilson said. He glanced at the clock. Cuddy would have to leave soon: if Greg saw her here, he'd wonder why. Greg would be coming home with him, tonight and every night, for a long time.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

**end**

**_and I really hope you guys are still interested now House isn't a slave any more._ *nervous* _Future chapters are likely to be shorter but also faster. Hopefully. Let me know if you're still interested, okay?_**

So we're now launched into third season of Collar!Verse and now seems a good time as any to remind y'all of Brindlewolf's Bitstrips cartoon commentary:

pics livejournal com brindlewolf pic 00056wsr

(replace spaces with . or / in appropriate places)


	2. Cane and Abel

_I think this is the longest I've ever kept you hanging! Sorry about that. Took me a while to hit my stride (and I got distracted (nicely distracted) *frowns at Tailkinker* but distracted!) This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. We're now safely in the third season. There are slaves, House is no longer one of them, kindly Doctor Wilson is still very interested... Whee..._

**3.02 Cane & Abel**

After three weeks, Chase thought, it ought to seem normal that Doctor House was walking around without a cane, without a collar. That he was no longer to be found asleep on the bunk in his office.

Cameron had found two fairly simple cases since the two paralysis patients, and the three of them had solved them both within twenty-four hours: House hadn't acted interested, though he'd been there for the DDX. Foreman had now found the son of a pair of rich donors. The son had a rectal bleed and believed he was regularly abducted by aliens. The parents thought their kid was going crazy.

"Kid is a product of an in vitro fertilization pregnancy. Had all his vaccinations, fractured his right ulna at age three, chicken pox at age five - "

"He ever get his feelings hurt?" House asked. "I'll need to know that, too."

"You are 0 for 1 since you came back," Foreman snapped. He evidently found the case interesting. "You just want to make sure - "

Cameron interrupted. "Rectal bleeding plus alien abduction fantasy is most likely sexual abuse. Penetration causes the bleed, trauma causes the fantasy."

That did seem a likely scenario. And not a diagnostics case - as simple to resolve, in its way, as Cameron's cases had been. Chase did not look at the wall between Diagnostics and Wilson's office. House was still living with Wilson, still being collected by Wilson at the end of every working day. He wasn't on a leash when he went home with Wilson, and he didn't look as bad when he showed up first thing in the morning. Chase didn't know what House was now being paid, but it obviously wasn't a department head's salary. It probably wasn't even a fellowship salary.

"ER ran a rape kit," Foreman told Cameron, "Found no evidence of tearing, semen, or pubic hairs."

Chase decided. Whether it was a diagnostics case or not, there were ways to make it more interesting to House than Foreman was managing. "Maybe we should talk to the kid."

"Why, in case he s telling the truth?" House swung round and looked at him. Chase glanced down at the notes, looking embarrassed, and looked up again in time to catch House's eyes. "You're a believer, aren't you?"

Five years ago an English university had published research on sleep paralysis as the probable cause of the "alien abduction" mental experience. Chase had read it. He was pretty sure House had too: until Wilson started taking an interest in him, House had nothing to do but read medical journals, and he'd read more weird shit medicine than any other doctor Chase had ever heard of. But if Chase brought up sleep paralysis, that wasn't going to be any fun. He'd also read more science-fiction than Cameron or Foreman, and certainly more than House had been able to any time in the past sixteen years.

"Well, I'm just not arrogant enough to think that of the 50 billion galaxies, 100 billion stars per galaxy, and 10 million billion planets in the universe that we're the only ones with life."

House gave him a very peculiar look. "No." He went on, completely deadpan, "But I'm guessing we're the only ones who like shoving things through our back doors."

Chase had to force himself not to look at Wilson's office. He saw Cameron twitch, as if she were resisting a reaction.

Foreman stayed boringly deadpan. "There is new research indicating a link between neurological problems and bleeding disorders."

"Perfect," House dismissed. "Especially if there were neurological problems."

"What part of 'hallucinating an alien abduction' isn t neurological?" Foreman demanded, his deadpan look cracking.

"Well, why is that a hallucination?" House asked, startling Chase.

"What? _You_ think the kid - " Was he going to have to admit to reading the sleep paralysis paper?

When House had wrapped up the first stage of a DDX his voice changed. This case was now definitely Diagnostics. "He's having nightmares. Nightmares aren't a symptom of anything, other than wanting to sleep with Mommy. Which just leaves us with one symptom: the bloody tuchas, which can easily be explained by a GI problem or a bleeding disorder. Check his coags with PT, PTT, and bleeding time. And prep him for endoscopies from above and below." He nodded a dismissal.

Out in the hall, Foreman still looked faintly smug. Cameron looked mildly envious. Chase volunteered to check the kid's coags. He wanted to find out how seriously the kid believed in his alien abduction experiences. House might be right about science-fiction induced nightmares.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

In principle, everything ought to have been _easier_ now House wasn't a slave. A department whose department head was the property of the hospital wasn't an orderly arrangement. Things didn't seem to have become any more orderly with House officially in charge. Foreman had never seen Greg whipped, but he was visualising it with House.

"Results came back," House intoned. "The lab cannot identify the metal. They said it might not even be terrestrial."

House hadn't even _done_ anything special in the weeks since he came back. He'd messed around with the paralysed guy, finally sending him home with an expensive medical bill and extended tendons and still paralysed. He'd picked up on the the girl with scurvy, but Cameron could have solved that case: horse, not zebra.

Sounding as if he thought House meant it, Chase said "Really?"

No, you idiot, Foreman thought: House is getting at you.

"No, you idiot!" House snapped. "It's titanium. Like from a surgical pin, like the kind the kid had inserted into his broken arm four years ago. Nice medical history," he added to Foreman, patronising.

Chase started arguing with House, an exercise in futility. Metal fragment from a surgical pin could have caused an inflammatory reaction, eroded into a vein, taken the fragment almost anywhere. Chase was right that it was more _likely_ to have gone to the lungs, but the really interesting thing was that Chase maybe hadn't made a mistake when he tested for a bleeding disorder. Because if Clancy had a bleeding disorder, he could have died digging out the metal fragment from the back of his neck.

"Yeah," House snapped, walking restlessly round the the room, "An alien chip makes more sense. The real mystery is you didn t actually screw up." And then his leg gave way. He lurched and recovered, grabbing at the edge of the table.

Foreman saw it: Cameron and Chase were gaping. Foreman closed his mouth and looked composed. He had seen the slave's leg: massive scarring. Even with the pain taken away, and a forced fitness program, a stumble wasn't surprising.

Cameron of course had to ask "You okay?" and got dismissed. House wanted the bleeding disorder test repeated: Clancy hadn't died from carving a hole in the back of his neck, so Chase hadn't just screwed up, something had gone weird. And despite what the parents kept saying about their son being after an alien tracking device, it seemed unlikely to be a straightforward mental illness.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Last time she had seen the man he had been a silent vegetative lump. Cameron walked briskly out of the clinic. Now he was smiling, walking, talking - asking her for Viagra to help him make love to his wife -

Cameron's heels made an angry noise on the floor. House was acting _defeated_. He'd taken on that man's case out of pure quixotic - gallantry, she thought now, remembering with an acute pain the way he had laughed at her and run, uncollared, arrogant and happy -

_Scar tissue on his hypothalamus is resting against the pituitary. The adrenals have shut down. Addison's disease._

- "House was right," she told Cuddy.

There was something different about Cuddy, Cameron registered. Something about the way she was sitting. And then she realised that Cuddy wasn't looking at all surprised.

"House was reckless with a patient," Cuddy said, not sounding at all surprised, either. "He didn t _know_ the patient had Addison's. He needs at least some glimmer of humility."

If Cuddy hadn't injected the cortisol herself, she knew about it. She'd known weeks ago that House had found the right diagnosis. As so often, House had _seen_ the answer - and left everyone else stumbling in his wake. "Humility, or humiliation?" Cameron asked, surprising herself with the edge in her voice. "Why does he need 'humility'? Because other people have it? Why does he need to be like other people?"

Cuddy was looking at her, seriously. "He needs to be less reckless," she said.

A cortisol injection would have done no harm if the man hadn't had Addison's. Cuddy hadn't wanted humility, she'd wanted to leash House again.

"Well, you did it," Cameron snapped. "He's dismissing symptoms, looking for easy solutions, he's in pain..."

"How much pain?" Cuddy asked abruptly.

"Why?" Cameron demanded, with contempt. "You _know_ this is affecting him, don't you?"

"Telling him that he got his last case right won't do anything to help him if the ketamine treatment is wearing off," Cuddy said. "How much pain is he in?"

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson had an email from the payroll department to let him know "Greg House" was getting his first payslip. He and Greg would have a discussion that evening, he'd planned, about Greg's share of the household running costs. Greg wasn't getting paid very much, and Wilson intended to accept no more than a token of rent from him. Greg still had the clothing and shoes which had been gifted him by his patron in the manumission agreement, but he didn't have a suitable winter coat, or bad-weather shoes, and those were probably more expensive than Greg could quite realise. Greg would need to set some money aside each week to buy what he'd need before winter. What was left wouldn't buy Greg's share of the groceries, but he could contribute what he had, and Wilson would buy the rest.

Greg was gone from the Diagnostics office when Wilson arrived. Cameron was the only fellow left: she looked up as if indifferently and said "He went home."

"What?" Wilson was genuinely startled and worried. "How?"

Cameron shrugged. She didn't look worried. "I guess he's walking," she said. "Or maybe taking the bus." She glanced at her watch. "He left about an hour ago."

"But he's never walked that far," Wilson said. His home was four or five miles from the hospital.

Cameron shrugged again. "He's got a map."

Wilson stared at her. "And you know this... how?"

"I saw him looking at it," Cameron said, voice of sweet reason. Wilson frowned. But he wasn't getting anywhere. He turned round and walked out.

He drove slower than usual on his way home, looking out for Greg. He wished Greg still had a name tag on. He could think of all the ways an ex-slave could get into trouble. Greg wasn't supposed to do this. And he knew it.

Wilson could hear someone moving around in the kitchen as soon as he got in. He walked quickly down the hall: the sight of Greg, alive and quite unharmed, was a real relief to him. Greg was putting things away in one of the kitchen closets: there was a stack of stuff on the counter, which Wilson realised was what he'd had in that closet - boxes of cereal, cans of soup, bottles of beer.

"Greg, where were you?" Wilson demanded.

"I walked home," Greg said. "Didn't Cameron tell you?"

"I was worried," Wilson said.

"Why?" Greg eyed him. "You know I can walk that distance. In fact you know I can run that distance on a treadmill."

Wilson waved his hand. "What are you doing?"

"I went shopping," Greg said. He sounded oddly satisfied. He fished in his back pocket and produced a 10-dollar bill. "Cuddy told me I'm paying you five dollars a month rent, so here's this month's and next month's."

Wilson stared at the bill. He had mentioned $5 to Cuddy as the token rent he'd accept for the first year: he hadn't realized Cuddy would tell Greg. "I was going to take you shopping."

Greg dropped the bill on the counter, when Wilson didn't take it. "Were you? I bet you were going to show me round the supermarket, spell out how much more money you have than I do, decide what we're going to eat for the next week, and take what you decided was the right amount from my money so that I could help you pay for it." He grinned, showing all of his teeth. "Not interested. I bought my own food."

Wilson took a step forward and opened the closet door. He looked inside. "You're planning to live on canned soup, cold cereal, and peanut butter sandwiches?"

Greg closed the door in Wilson's face. "My food. My money. My business."

"Fine," Wilson said. He stood there, really annoyed and frustrated. "You know that's not exactly a healthy diet."

Greg laughed. It was quite sudden and quite unexpected. He picked up a plate on the counter - he'd made a sloppy sandwich, peanut butter and jelly - and walked out of the kitchen. The heap of stuff on the counter hadn't been stacked tidily, and, still annoyed, Wilson started putting it away.

Greg had enjoyed the meals Wilson had prepared for them both. He'd got frustrated and bored by the invalid diet Wilson had made him eat after he got shot. As Wilson tidied the mess away in the kitchen, he started to smile. Good food. Greg would come round. Wilson didn't expect him to hold out for long.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Hospital maintenance had finally put Greg's name up on the door of Diagnostics: it gave Cuddy something of a start to see it, even though she had issued instructions weeks ago. She would have sent another department head a message to come see her: if she'd wanted to speak to Greg, she would have sent a team of security guards bring him. Visiting the Diagnostics office seemed like a compromise. She'd done that before he was freed, a few times.

"How s the kid doing?" Cuddy asked. She'd had Clancy's parents in her office for twenty minutes of coffee and worrying out loud.

"Heart nearly exploded," Greg said. He sat behind his desk, his hand on the keyboard, staring at her as if she were the most unexpected sight in the world. "Still beating, though. Most of it, anyway."

"How's your leg?"

"You're pregnant," Greg said.

Cuddy had the first sperm treatment yesterday. There was no way to know if it had taken: Greg knew she had been having fertility treatments and was trying to deflect her. Cuddy ignored him. "If you re feeling any ... discomfort, I want to get a PET scan of your brain." Discomfort was a mild word for what Greg would be feeling if the ketamine treatment was wearing off: but there could be other explanations. A PET scan would show if there was increased activity in the thalamus, and if there wasn't, any pain Greg might be experiencing could be a good sign, show that Greg was using the weakened leg more. "Give me a pain level."

Greg went on staring at her. "Your breasts are firmer. I think it's hormones." He didn't smile. "Guess I should be saying 'mazel tov.' Who gets to pass out the cigars?"

Greg had thrown a sudden and very unexpected tantrum over Cuddy's initial selection of sperm bank: the New Jersey Slave Administration Center. It was none of his business - especially not now he was a free employee - and Cuddy didn't intend to acnowledge anything even to herself until the first pregnancy test.

"I'm not pregnant. I need to get a PET scan of your brain."

"Boy or girl? You got a name picked out?"

"I'm not pregnant!" Cuddy snapped.

"My leg doesn't hurt," Greg snapped back.

House really _did_ think she was pregnant. And his leg really _did_ hurt. Cuddy snapped the first thought under cover to deal with later, and opened her mouth to order Greg to the scanner.

Except she couldn't. If House didn't want a PET scan, Cuddy couldn't make him. It would be better not to have that confrontation now. "You're in denial," Cuddy told him.

"No, I m not!" House grinned. It wasn't the tooth-bared cornered grin she'd seen so many times over fifteen years. "Oh, you got me. If I thought my leg was deteriorating, don't you think I d want to take steps to prevent that?"

"Okay," Cuddy said.

Greg's beeper went off. He glanced at it, and then at Cuddy. She stood and watched as he got up, smoothly, and walked without limping towards the door. She thought she saw a hesitation in his step, but couldn't be sure.

"Are you having trouble using the elevators?" she thought to ask.

"No," Greg said, without looking back at her.

Doctor Wilson was busy on Wednesdays, but he usually did two hours of clinic duty Thursday. Cuddy had been a junior administrator when the new entrance hall of the hospital was being built: she had designed her administrator's office with a long view through the glass windows to the internal entrance to the clinic and across the foyer so that she could see people coming in and going out.

She waited for Wilson to leave the clinic and came out of her office in time to meet him halfway across the foyer. There was an oncology benefit dinner next week: she asked and Wilson said, rather shortly, that yes, he'd be there.

"What will you be doing with Greg for the evening?" Cuddy asked. "You know, the dress clothes the hospital bought for him are still available."

Wilson grimaced. "He doesn't need a sitter." They were climbing the stairs to the mezzanine floor. Wilson paused a moment and grinned at her, suddenly and genuinely amused. "Or rather, he _does_, but it's not as if I can make him."

Cuddy grinned back. "Let me know if you have any problems." She'd meant to ask, casually and in passing, if he'd noticed Greg experiencing any pain, but Doctor Cameron walked up to them without warning.

"You have to tell him," Cameron said. She was ign oring Wilson so hard he might have been invisible.

"He said he wasn t in any pain," Cuddy remarked.

"He's lying," Cameron said.

"Of _course_ he's lying," Wilson said, so abruptly that Cameron couldn't pretend to be ignoring him any more.

"He's in pain," Cameron said. "He needs to know he got it right. I'm going to tell him."

"No, you're not," Wilson said.

When Cameron looked at her, Cuddy could only shrug. She agreed with Wilson. "We'll come up with some kind of plan."

"Do it fast," Cameron said, and stalked off.

Cuddy sighed. "She's not nearly as delightful as she thinks she is."

By the look on his face, Wilson didn't think Cameron was delightful at all.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Clancy was nervous, asking questions. Chase did his usual reassure-the-kid shtick, but once the scan started, the kid couldn't hear them, and Chase settled back looking bored. Chase was lazy, but Foreman didn't blame him this time. He asked "You think House has lost his step?"

"He's fine," Cameron said dismissively. "There - clump of affected cells in the bone marrow of the femur. Explains the intermittent bleeding disorder."

Greg had been an amazing diagnostician. Foreman could admit that. Apparently he'd been pretty damn good before the infarction. Maybe the loss of pain and the lost collar had left him floundering. But he was still as much of an arrogant jerk as ever. "Because I don't need to subject myself to House's torture if there's no upside."

"I'm telling you, he's fine," Cameron dismissed again. "We missed some affected areas in his heart, explains the continuing hypertensive issues."

Foreman studied Cameron. "You said the last case really threw him," he observed. "And now suddenly - "

"I was wrong."

"So you changed your mind? Why? His brilliant ideas in this case have all been yours."

Cameron pointed at the abnormal cells in Clancy's eyes. "There's the reason for him needing glasses, apparently it's a symptom. Means the condition predates - "

Cameron was ignoring him. Foreman was interested. Talking about Greg was Cameron's favourite thing to do.

"You don't change your mind without a reason. What do you know?"

Chase looked up.

"House didn't blow the last case. Cuddy cured the guy using House's idea. Cuddy and Wilson are trying to teach him some humility," Cameron said shortly. "Scan is complete. Three hot spots but nothing in his brain. House s original theory was right - it is not neurological."

Humility. Foreman kept his face expressionless. He liked that.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson walked into the Diagnostics office at 4:30. Greg was sitting at his desk. He wasn't working: he was tilted back in his office chair, staring at the window. When Wilson closed the door, Greg jerked the chair back to normal and stared at Wilson, not speaking: his eyes were wide and startled.

"You want to go for a run?" Wilson asked.

Greg swallowed. "What do you want?"

Wilson took out a pill box. From his tenure on the Diagnostics maintenance committee, he knew what Greg had wanted, and it wasn't oxycontin. "I want you to run." He put the labelled container down on the desk. There were two tablets inside. "One now, one in six hours."

Greg swallowed again. He looked very, very tempted. "Did you forget your other leash?"

"You need an exercise program. Vicodin blocks the pain, you get through your rehab, muscle strength increases, and pain decreases."

Greg picked up the pill box. Flatly, he said "Chase has a big mouth." Wilson kept his face serious. But without changing expression, Greg threw the pill box at Wilson. "I'd rather not become dependant on pain pills to get through my day."

"You're just running away from knowledge that won't make you happy."

"I'm as happy as a pig in poop," Greg said.

"You're scared the ketamine treatment's wearing off. That it was just a tortuous window of the good life."

"What part of poop didn't you understand?"

"Cameron ratted you out," Wilson said. He watched Greg's face change. "It could just be a sore muscle."

"It's my leg. We've known each other a long time." Greg lifted his chin and stared at Wilson.

"You're not always right, Greg," Wilson said. "You've proven that lately." He didn't wait to watch that sink in: he turned round and walked out.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Clancy was better, but not cured: House looked tired. Cameron went on explaining "Obviously we missed some foreign tissue. There s something still in him."

Foreman leaned back in his chair and eyed House. "The hallucinations and seizures indicate problems in the temporal lobe. Sorry, House, it _is_ neurological. Looks like you're wrong, again."

"We didn't miss anything," Chase said hastily. "Brain scan was completely clean."

House sent them back to scan Clancy's brain again. When they came back, an hour later, House was limping restlessly round the conference room. There was a map of Princeton on Cameron's laptop. She looked startled by it.

"His symptoms are neurological," Foreman said. "His condition has to be neurological."

"His scan was clean, twice!" Cameron was staring at the map. "If it's not there, it's not neurological."

House pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. "What if it is there but didn t show up on the scan? What if the tag just doesn't work in his brain? Brain cells are structurally different, express a different protein."

That made sense. "How are we going to find it?" Chase asked.

House got up and went out. Cameron turned to follow him, but House closed the door almost in her face. He stood there a moment, and then re-opened the door.

"Where are we going?" Cameron asked.

"I am going to think," House said, and closed the door again. Chase watched him down the hall. He was, very definitely, limping on his scarred leg.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

After finding out what Cuddy - and, it was clear, Wilson - had conspired to do to Doctor House, Cameron had gone to him and offered to help with anything House needed. She wasn't sure what she had expected - or hoped for - but House had looked at her, and looked away, and told her she could give him a street map.

Evidently he didn't need it or didn't want it any more.

There was still no administrative assistant for Diagnostics. Doctor House had changed the password to his email account, so the forwarded emails to his fellows - the dullest, stupidest consults - were coming from him directly. Cameron wondered if Foreman had worked that out. (She wondered if Foreman were dealing with the emails Doctor House sent him.)

She didn't know where House had gone, and she was worried about him. In the first hour they waited for him, she'd discussed going to look for him, but both Chase and Foreman had rejected it. In the second hour, Cameron wondered to herself when they - when _she_, if the other two wouldn't - should go looking for him.

House reappeared suddenly, about fifteen minutes after Cameron had decided that in half an hour she'd raise the alarm. He limped into the Diagnostics office. "Send the kid home."

"What do you mean?" Cameron was startled.

"Make sure his blood pressure's stabilized, and send him home."

"Like nothing ever happened?" Chase sounded surprised, too.

"We cured his bleeding disorder," House said. "Removed all the damaged cells we could find."

"We don't know that we fixed anything," Chase protested. "It's only been a day. Maybe these symptoms come and go like the blood disorder."

"It's more probable that his remaining symptoms are just a nightmare," House said.

"He had a convulsion," Foreman reminded him. He never sounded surprised.

"May be epilepsy," House said. "May be psychological, may be nothing. If the kid gets sick again it'll give us another clue, we can start searching again. If he doesn't, it doesn't matter. Send him home." He limped slowly into his office, closed the door, and they saw him sit down on the Eames chair. He hadn't used it since he came back.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Life was much simpler when Cuddy could simply order Greg to be brought to her office. Instead she had to keep an eye on the foyer and trust he was leaving through the front door. (Wilson had complained Greg had taken to walking to work and back instead of being given a lift.)

She almost missed him, none the less: he was wearing a coat she didn't recognise. He was limping, but not using a cane. Outside, he pulled a scarf out of his pocket and was wrapping himself up. Cuddy walked up and he looked at her, warily.

"You're just giving up on this kid?" Cuddy demanded.

"You've got to know when to stop," Greg reminded her, dryly.

"You don't stop, you never stop, you just keep on going until you come up with something so insane that it s usually right."

"Except on my last case," Greg reminded her again. He sounded defeated.

"Don't be pathetic," Cuddy snapped. "Just forget the last case. This kid obviously has something wrong with him."

Greg shrugged.

"This is a young boy. His parents are desperate. Just get together with your team, spend a few extra hours - "

"Well, I guess we could amputate his left leg," Greg said thoughtfully. "That's where we found most of it. Maybe we could just remove his affected eye completely."

That was insane. Cuddy didn't want to shoot it down if Greg was thinking about the case again. "If you have reason to believe that that might help - "

"I'm not going to start lopping off body parts," Greg said. "But it's interesting that you'd give me the green light."

"I just want you to do something."

"You always care about rugrats," Greg said. "But this is - " he stared at her. "Either you're hormonal or you're guilt-ridden. And it's too early in the pregnancy for this to be hormonal."

"I'm not pregnant," Cuddy said. It was still too early for a test, and she'd already decided she wouldn't tell anyone till the second trimester.

Greg looked her over again. "Then what did you do wrong?"

It wasn't _wrong_. "He had Addison's, your last patient. You were right. I gave him one shot of cortisol and he woke up like Rip van Winkle."

Greg looked down at her stomach. As if talking to a baby, he said "Oh, your mommy's in such trouble. She's such a liar! That's why you don t have a daddy. That's why she had to - " He stopped talking. He looked up. His eyes were wide and glassy.

"In vitro fertilization costs about 25 grand a pop. Doctors implant about two to six embryos to make sure you get your money's worth."

"I didn't use in vitro," Cuddy said unguardedly.

"Not you," Greg said. "He's two people in one. Alien DNA." He turned round and walked back into the hospital.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson was startled when Greg walked into his office. He could have sworn he'd seen Greg already leave. And Greg had never come to his office voluntarily, except to ask for help with a case. The case was over: Greg had sent the Diagnostics patient home.

"You believe what Cuddy tried to pull?" Greg said, with visible bravado.

Wilson waited a beat. "What now?"

"She lied to me," Greg said. "She cured my patient with my diagnosis, then lied to me about it."

Greg had caught on. Well, once Cameron knew, it was only a matter of time. Wilson folded his arms and frowned at Greg. "That doesn't sound like her."

"You're right," Greg said, pleasantly. "It does sound like you, though."

Wilson's arms involuntarily tightened. "What exactly did Cuddy tell you?" he asked cautiously.

"Nothing that your body language isn't telling me right now," Greg said. "So, what was the plan? That I'd feel so humble by missing a case that I d reevaluate my entire life, question nature, truth, and goodness and crawl back to get fucked by you?"

"More that if we told you the truth; that you'd solved the case based on absolutely no medical proof, that you'd think you were God. And I was worried your wings would melt."

Greg stared at him. There was a long pause. Wilson kept his gaze steady on Greg. Finally, very reluctantly, Greg said "My leg hurt."

A dozen thoughts roiled through Wilson at once, at least three of which he was very ashamed of. "How bad?"

"Enough that I'm telling you," Greg said. "You're listed as my attending physician. Cuddy won't change that. I asked her. You're the only one who can write prescriptions for me."

"Did the pain go away?" Wilson asked.

"Ached for a while. First time I felt anything there since the surgery."

"But it went away?"

"It was muscular," Greg said. "It felt like some cramping. I want a prescription for Vicodin."

"Greg, people get aching joints, cramps, they put on an ice pack, they take some ibuprofen." Wilson smiled. "I've got ibuprofin in my desk here or at home, if you want."

"The surgery didn't work," Greg said, too grimly for Wilson to take him seriously. He grinned.

"Don't play me."

"You think this is a scam?"

"I think you want me to feel sorry for you and give you the drugs. You used to be a Vicodin addict." Wilson reached for his prescription pad and rather pointedly put it away. "Either way, you get the high you think you need."

Greg shook his head. He looked very tired. Wilson was momentarily tempted to write the prescription, but the maintenance committee records had taught him the Diagnostics slave - even if he was free now - shouldn't be trusted with a unmonitored bottle of Vicodin. If he needed pills, Wilson intended to dole them out at prescribed intervals. ANd he hadn't yet seen for himself that Greg needed them.

"God doesn't limp," Greg said, and walked out.

_tba_


	3. Informed Consent

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**3.03 Informed Consent**

Greg was sitting facing the TV, nursing a cup of coffee, when Wilson noticed him. The TV wasn't switched on. Greg was sitting apparently lost in thought. Wilson glanced at his watch: it was well past the time Greg would have needed to leave if he was going to walk to work.

"Good morning," Wilson said.

Greg didn't look round. He said flatly, still staring at the blank TV, "I need a ride to work."

Wilson grinned. He kept his voice serious, even sympathetic. "How badly does your leg hurt?"

"Can I have a ride to work?" Greg said. He turned round to look at Wilson, who wiped the grin off his face.

"Of course," he said steadily. "Give me half an hour in the physio department at lunchtime, and I'll write you a prescription for Vicodin, too."

There was a pause. Greg nodded, finally. He turned his head away, looking at the dead TV, letting Wilson grin again. He'd known Greg would come round, eventually.

"This isn't going the way you planned, is it," Greg said. He didn't look round. Wilson was making breakast for himself: he knew by the bowl in the sink that Greg had already eaten cold cereal with milk. Wilson was making pancakes. A bit more trouble for a weekday breakfast, but worth it to remind Greg what he was missing by being so ridiculously independent about his meals.

"No, not really," Wilson lied. A bit of a rocky start, but he was confident things would go exactly as planned quite soon.

"You thought I'd let you fuck me," Greg said bluntly.

Wilson came and sat down with pancakes and coffee next to Greg. "Well," he said dryly, "it's not like you didn't enjoy it."

Greg buried his face in his coffee mug. He didn't look at Wilson. He lurched ton his feet and headed for the sink to rinse out his cup. He said loudly, heading towards the door, "The only way I'd let you inside me again is if you paid for it." He picked up his cane. Wilson didn't comment.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Foreman was disappointed, but not especially surprised, that House's recovery had relapsed. All the way, if he was walking with a cane. He was probably back on painkillers. (Chase, both funny and right for once: "Luckily he'll handle it in a stoic, grown-up fashion - he'd never take it out on us.") It was interesting, and surprising, that House admired Ezra Powell - Powell had written _the_ definitive textbook on heart disease, but House usually acted like no other doctor could impress him. In Foreman's mind Ezra Powell was a name in a textbook, a writer of clear, lucid prose: in the flesh he was a little, frail, elderly man, with no breath left for talking. The problem had to be heart or lungs - his lungs were filling with fluid, but from his inability to push the stress EKG his heart wasn't strong either.

The third try on the EKG stress test, Doctor Powell was trying to up his heart rate using his arms instead of the standard treadmill. Cameron was cheerleading. Foreman didn't hear House come in: he only realised he was there when House spoke.

"There are 20 words to describe chest pain - burning, squeezing, stabbing, tearing - each one diagnostically useful." House sounded strange. Foreman glanced at him, then at Chase: he saw Chase react too. "For that you have to thank Doctor Powell's textbook. There are no words to describe degrees of what he's feeling right now - shortness of breath. If he'd worked on those issues, there would be. Because he never would have given up until he had an answer."

Doctor Powell's heartrate was still at 90. No use to them.

Cameron called through the intercom "This isn't working."

House walked out of the viewing room. Foreman watched him enter the test room, and look at Doctor Powell. His face changed again. Oddly, so did Doctor Powell's: recognition.

"Doctor House..." Powell said, breathlessly.

"Please don't get up. I'm sure you're very busy," House said. He went to the cart and got a loaded syringe. "I'm just going to try and speed things up a little." There was something in his voice. Not respect. Some kind of _satisfaction_.

"Is that Epi?" Cameron asked. "That's not the protocol."

House injected the epi into Powell's IV. "No, the protocol, is what you tried to do and failed each time."

Foreman looked at the readings. There was a loud frantic beep. Powell's heart rate was increasing. Fast.

"Now we're getting somewhere. How's it look, Foreman?" House asked.

There were no EKG changes. Foreman said so.

House raised his eyebrows. "Then we push harder."

"House, you're going to kill him," Cameron protested. She sounded really worried, and this was risky.

But Doctor Powell said, gasping breathlessly, "No, he's right, let him - let him do it."

Okay. That was informed consent. Powell knew the risks if anyone did. Foreman watched. House injected a second syringe of Epi into the IV and the heart monitor went wild. He stopped when the heart rate hit 130. Powell looked scared and breathless, but he wasn't protesting.

"The magic number," House said. "Nothing here. Foreman?"

"Still no sign of blockage."

"Which means it's not the heart. So it must be the lungs." House replaced the partly-used syringe on the cart. He spoke to Powell, and his voice still held that strange, unlikeable satisfaction. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Foreman glanced at Chase and saw him watching House, too. Cameron had got the antagonist and Powell looked at her, still afraid, still gasping for breath. "No! Just - give me the rest of the epinephrine."

"The test is over," Cameron said reassuringly. "It's okay, we're going to stabilize you."

"No!" Powell grabbed her arm. He wasn't speaking loudly, but Foreman heard him. "No. Just let me die."

"You're not going to die," Cameron protested.

"Yes, I a-" Powell choked. "I am."

"We'll find a treatment," Cameron said reassuringly.

"I don't want to live like this," Powell said. "Please. I'm begging you." He gasped for breath. "Kill me."

House walked out. Foreman looked at Chase again and saw him looking at Powell with sympathy - with _understanding_. So was Cameron. Suicidal patient. There shouldn't be this much sympathy. Chase got up to join Cameron and help Powell back to the ward. Foreman was thoughtful.

They argued it over in House's office. Chase, unsurprisingly for an intensivist, was honestly supportive: Doctor Powell was 71, sick and getting worse, but clearly in his right mind. Powell wanted to die. They should help. Cameron kept saying they should respect Powell's decision. House said flatly (and still with that strange satisfaction) that Powell would feel better once they cured him.

"_Every_ doctor does it," Chase said, and Foreman reacted to that.

"I haven't, I won't."

"I couldn't do it either," Cameron said.

Chase looked incredulously at her. He'd obviously thought Cameron was on his side. So had Foreman. "You just said we should respect his decision."

"Respect it doesn't necessarily mean we honor it," Cameron quibbled.

"Right. Just means we talk about it." Chase paused. "At some point, do no harm has to mean allowing nature to take its course, not stubbornly standing in the way of it."

"Sticking a metal syringe into a plastic I.V. line and pumping in a lethal dose of morphine is not letting nature take its course," Foreman said flatly. "Not according to the state of New Jersey."

Cameron looked as if that annoyed her. "So it's better we allow him to slowly suffocate in his own plasma?"

"Whose side are you on, senator?" Foreman asked, sarcastically. "First respect his wishes, then invade Iraq, then get the troops home. Make up your mind."

House had been wandering around the Diagnostics room, tapping with his cane, apparently ignoring the discussion, which didn't mean he was. "Wow," he said suddenly, pausing and turning to look at all three of them. "Certainly a lot of interesting things to consider. Stress EKG rules out the heart, which means something's got to be attacking his lungs. Mycoplasmas or strep pneumo, which probably means it's too late to do anything about it. We could try levofloxacin."

Cameron sounded reproachful. "Coming up with a new treatment isn't going to do us any good unless we convince him it's worth trying."

House grinned, showing all of his teeth. "Oh, come on. He's old, and sick, and tiny. We can do whatever we want to him."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

It was nearly the end of the working day. The current Diagnostics patient was Doctor Ezra Powell: brought in after he collapsed in his lab. Oncology had been asked to test for leukemia, and Wilson had collected Greg from Diagnostics and taken him to the lab to interview about the patient while running the tests. "No abnormal nuclei means no leukemia; he a drinker?"

"Not according to the history," Greg said.

"Which means yes, he drinks, which gives us a nice mundane explanation for the acellularity."

"Or he's telling the truth," Greg said. "Which means fungus is still on the table."

"But the whole principle by which Diagnostics works gets destroyed," Wilson noted. He shrugged. "Six of one, half a dozen of the other."

Cameron came in. She looked at Wilson with her customary suspicion. Greg said "Bad news fast. Good news you can take your time."

"Head is clean," Cameron said. "You were wrong, his faculties are intact."

"Too bad," Greg said. "If his brain was addled, we wouldn't have to listen to anything he says."

"Hand me the 10% KOH," Wilson instructed. Greg obeyed.

"It's 4 o'clock; we have nothing to tell him," Cameron said.

"Then we have no reason to talk to him," Greg said, sounding a bit too cheerful. "We still haven't ruled out fungus."

"Yes, I have," Wilson corrected him. "No buds, no hyphae."

"Okay. Next procedure; we sneak in, turn back the clock." Greg and Cameron left: Cameron casting a final dirty look at Wlson.

It was well over an hour later that Greg came back to Wilson's office.

"You're still here," Greg said.

"You need a ride home," Wilson said. He stood up. Right now was when he should have been able to pull out the leash. "Let's go."

"Wait." Greg sounded uneasy. "What if you paid me?"

"What?" Wilson realised it was a classic double-take. His mind was full of work, and irritation with Greg, but he remembered what Greg had said. _Only if you pay me._ "Oh... hoh. What?"

"Ten thousand," Greg said, giving Wilson a wide-eyed stare.

The punchline of the joke, Wilson remembered, was _We've already established what you are. Now we're just haggling over the price._

He didn't mention it to Greg, though.

If Greg had asked for fifty dollars, or even two hundred dollars, Wilson thought he'd have been insulted. It had taken some time for Wilson to see that Greg's parting line that morning when he asked Wilson for a ride into work, was really an invitation - Greg wanted an excuse.

Ten thousand? Wilson smiled, and began to patiently argue Greg down to a less absurd figure. Trivial amounts would have been insulting, implying Greg was only in it for the money. But though Greg might want a few dollars here or there to buy more expensive food, or a better warm jacket (Greg had admitted he'd got his outdoor coat and scarf from Goodwill) he didn't need thousands. His residence had to be approved by the hospital, which meant he was living with Wilson and paying minimal rent (and stealing Wilson's food) and he had a full professional wardrobe from slavery. Five thousand, where Greg stuck, was evidently his idea of a good excuse.

Finaly: Wilson couldn't resist Greg. He could afford five thousand. And he thought that once Greg was reminded again of how much he'd enjoyed having sex with Wilson, he wouldn't need this kind of excuse to stop sleeping on the narrow mattresses in the slave quarters.

"All right," Wilson said finally. He smiled, and pulled his checkbook out from his desk. He looked up and saw Greg staring at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. Wilson said, patiently, "I'll write a check, made out to you, dated tomorrow. You can leave it in your desk or whatever you like. Then you come home with me." He smiled more widely. "We're both going to enjoy this."

Greg nodded. He swallowed. "Just... One more thing."

"What?"

"Back soon," Greg said hastily, and walked out.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The twenty-four hours were up. House had gone away to think, he said: Chase supposed if he went home, that would delay Powell's discharge from the hospital until tomorrow morning. But he didn't think Powell was going to change his mind.

He looked up and saw House leaving _Wilson's_ office. He glanced at Foreman and Cameron: they'd seen it too. House limped down the hall, ignoring them. When he came back, he was carrying a small injection kit, and he went into the ward - still ignoring them, but they followed.

The kit held morphine, and a syringe. Chase thought it was a lethal dose.

"Everybody who can walk should get out of here," House said.

"You can't do that," Cameron said.

"Can't do what?" House asked. "Administer a prescription painkiller to a patient who's in pain? Go. Make sure somebody sees you downstairs in the cafeteria."

Chase hesitated. He'd known this happened. Every doctor does it, eventually. When you get a patient who's dying slow and who wants to make it faster. But he'd never seen anyone do it so explicitly. Usually there was plausible deniability - tell a patient the security code for the morphine pump. Or a plausible accidental overdose. If Foreman or Cameron wanted to make trouble, after Powell was dead, House could easily find himself back in a collar for this.

"I can't let you do this," Foreman said. He walked over to the bed. He was talking to House, but Doctor Powell answered. "Either I die in pain or I just die; that's what the argument is here."

"No," Foreman said. "It's about whether you die or we murder you."

House looked at Foreman. He held up the syringe, pressing the plunger to eliminate airbubbles. "What's going to happen here is that someone's getting a butt-load of morphine. I'm not sure exactly who at this point."

After a long moment - Foreman looked at Doctor Powell, looked at House - he walked out. Cameron seemed to fold. "I can't be a part of this." She walked out too.

House looked at Chase.

There was a clear ethical choice here. Powell was in his right mind. He knew what was happening to him. He knew it would eventually have killed him. And he was asking for the overdose House was about to give him. It shocked Chase, but if he believed it was Powell's right to decide, and he did, then he had to follow through. He swallowed. He went to the door, closed it, then to the windows, and drew down the blinds. He was now the only witness. Unless Foreman or Cameron ratted them out, he could say "It was an accident," and no one could disagree,

Doctor Powell said quietly, breathlessly, "Thank you," and Chase saw House nod.

"Every time," Powell said. "I've always wondered exactly what was on the other side."

House's voice was completely flat. "Nothing." He injected the morphine into the IV.

The effects were almost immediate. Powell was dying. It wouldn't take long. But after a few moments, House looked at the clock. He grabbed the bed and pulled it away from the wall.

"What are you doing?" Chase asked, bewildered.

"Getting a laryngoscope," House said briskly. "Don't just stand there, help."

"But you told him - " Chase was completely bewildered.

"Yes," House agreed. "A little something I like to call a lie. Bad I know, but it's way further down the list than murder." He intubated Doctor Powell and started to pump the ambu bag. "He's unconscious. No more whining. You're going to keep testing him."

Chase opened his mouth speechlessly. Powell had _refused_ tests.

"Go get a ventilator, not going to do this all night," House ordered. "And go get Foreman and Cameron."

They hadn't gone far. They both gave Chase a really concerned look and came back with him. Foreman helped House fit the ventilator.

"Now he's unconscious, we can legally assume that he'd consent to whatever a _reasonable_ person would consent to," House said.

"And a reasonable person would obviously consent to being put in a coma against their will just to satisfy your curiosity." Cameron was audibly appalled.

House said, dry and faintly exasperated, "I try to kill him, you're mad. I don't kill him, you're mad."

"All he wanted was some dignity," Cameron protested.

"Were you in that room with him? Was he wearing a tux while he was choking on his own plasma? Keep doing the tests. Take your time, do it right. Go." He turned to look at the MRI image. "Get to work."

Chase didn't move. He didn't know what to say, but he wanted to say something. He saw Cameron and Foreman looking at him - concern looked really _odd_ on Foreman, but it was clear.

"Wait!" House shouted it, apparently thinking they'd gone away: when he saw them all still standing there, he looked faintly disconcerted. "Cameron, why'd you do these cuts so far down on this MRI of his head?"

"I wanted to get his brain-stem and his C-spine, make sure his diaphragm wasn t paralyzed."

"You also caught the top of his lungs. There's scarring."

Chase found he could actually speak. "Lung scarring along with the bad bone marrow points to an autoimmune disease. Could be pulmonary fibrosis."

"Or Lupus," Foreman said.

"He can kill himself after we get him better. Start him on an IVIG for the Lupus, and get a colonoscopy. Lupus could be hiding there."

Chase nodded. This was actual progress and it made him feel better. He turned to go. Foreman glanced at Cameron, and Chase stopped. Cameron was still staring at House.

"You do know you can't actually pierce me with your stare?" House asked.

"I can't do this," Cameron said flatly. She walked out.

"Drama queen," House said. He looked at Foreman and Chase. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Greg was back in half an hour. "Okay," he said, disrespectfully. "Let's go."

"Wait," Wilson said. "No rush. I want to make sure you're prepared." He nodded at the dildo kit he had got out while Greg was gone.

Greg stared at it. "No," he said.

"I just want to make sure you're prepared," Wilson said kindly. "After all, it's been a while."

"No," Greg said.

"Backing out of the deal?" Wilson asked.

"I didn't agree to that."

Wilson sat down behind his desk again. He left the dildo and the harness in plain view. He very much wanted this - to get the evening started as soon as possible, to see again the beautifully helpless look of Greg squirming in arousal.

"The deal was for a night," Wilson reminded him, looking up again. "The night starts now. Be sensible. I don't want to hurt you."

Greg actually laughed. When Wilson frowned at him, he shook his head. He glanced at the door. "If - okay. But - the deal is off if - "

"If what?"

"You can't tie me up," Greg said. "You can't hit me."

"_Hit_ you?" Wilson was offended.

"The deal was for sex," Greg said. "Fucking. Sucking. Not - "

"Fine," Wilson said, tired of this. "I will not hit you. I will not tie you up. Happy?"

"No touching my scar either," Greg said. He swallowed. "Okay?"

Wilson shrugged. He liked to explore the deep scar with a gentle touch, but if Greg was tense about it, he could certainly forego that pleasure for now. "All right. Now will you take your pants down, bend over the arm of the couch and let me get you ready."

After a moment, Greg obeyed. He dropped his cane.

Wilson shut down his computer, put some papers in his drawer, and went leisurely across the room, picking up the dildo and harness and the tube of lubricant. He pushed the nozzle of the tube in Greg's anus, squeezing in a good blob. He smiled. It was satisfactory to see Greg's anus opening up to welcome him, as he pushed the dildo in.

"Good boy," he said gently. "That's right."

Greg was quiet on the way home. Wilson had expected that. He wished he had the leash, but Greg came with him cooperatively.

He had Greg sit on the couch while Wilson prepared some food, and handfed him from Wilson's plate. Greg didn't make any protest about being given a bath, or - after Wilson saw the mess on the dildo - having a small enema. Wilson lubed him up again after the enema, enjoying the way Greg squirmed as Wilson's fingers entered him.

It was pleasant and familiar, to be handling Greg like this again. Wilson got undressed and into bed, pulling Greg's long lean body against his own. He handled Greg's cock and balls, gently, unsurprised and pleased when Greg turned and pushed his mouth on to Wilson's erection.

He'd missed these blowjobs. Greg used his tongue and mouth and throat expertly. When he realised Greg was trying to make him come, Wilson pulled his off by his hair, and grinned at Greg, shifting Greg into position to let Wilson enter him.

Greg's anus closed round him, smooth and tight. Wilson drew in a breath. So good.

He fucked Greg till he forced the slave to come: he came inside Greg, deep and hot. As so often after being forced to orgasm, Greg sobbed out loud, crying real tears: Wilson nuzzled his face and petted him. He'd missed even this.

He did indulge himself, while Greg was sobbing and shaking as Wilson held him, with a soft exploratory brush over the scar using just his fingertips. Just the once. Wilson shifted his hands to pet Greg's back and buttocks, enjoying the lines of scarring there. After a while Greg's sobs slowed, and Wilson petted him with long, slow strokes. He couldn't see Greg's expression clearly from this angle. It almost looked as if, despite the tears, Greg was grinning.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Chase and Foreman came back into the Diagnostics office sometimes, but didn't speak to her. They looked tired. Cameron sat at the table reading through the huge collection of articles Ezra Powell had published across a range of medical fields. Foreman had suggested at the start that Doctor Powell's condition might have been affected by chemicals he'd inhaled in lab work: it seemed all that was left for Cameron to ethically do.

She was reading for medical affects on Ezra Powell, and it took her longer than it should have to see the pattern she wasn't looking for. When she saw it, she sat still for a long time. After a while, she got up and walked across to House's cubbyhole, opened the door, and looked for a few minutes at the space where there had been a bunk on which the chattel Greg had slept for years.

Cameron began to sort the papers out into a consistent order. She was beginning to feel sick with tiredness, but she pushed on. The light outside got stronger. The hospital was waking up around her.

It must have been sometime after eight when Greg walked in. She was sitting down again, and he didn't seem to notice her immediately: he saw the stacks of papers on the table and came across to look at them.

Then Greg looked at her. For a long moment, his face was immobile, expressionless.

"Get rid of these," Greg said. "You don't need them."

"I understand - " Cameron started to say.

"No," Greg said. "You don't." He walked into his office and closed the door. He was only there a few moments, as Cameron stood uncertain, but when he walked out he looked better. He cast her a look as he walked out of the Diagnostics office and down the hall towards the ward.

When he came back, with Foreman and Chase, he was Doctor House, not Greg, and Foreman was talking as they came into the room "Okay, so you got me curious."

"I was right," House said. "Whatever is attacking his lungs is attacking his nerves."

"You got that by splashing ice water on him?" Chase asked.

"No sensation in the left leg, abdomen, right arm. Technology's overrated."

They were talking: Cameron kept watching them. Kawasaki s, lymphoma, or sarcoidosis were the current diagnoses."

"All potentially treatable," House said. "Question is which. We need to catch the little bastards in the act. What's the largest organ?"

"Skin?" Chase sounded uncertain.

"We need to get a piece." House looked at Cameron. "I want you to get a skin sample for a biopsy."

"It could be a hundred other things that aren't treatable," Cameron said. "You have no idea."

"But you do," House said. "You know everything."

"I didn t say that I - "

House slammed his cane down on the table. "Exactly! You can't decide if we're helping or hurting him; if he's good or bad; or if you want paper, plastic, or a burlap sack. Do your damn job."

Cameron swallowed. Chase and Foreman were staring at her. "I'm not going to lie to him," she said.

"Fine, tell the truth," House snapped. "Just get me a pound of flesh."

Down the hall. Doctor Ezra Powell was lying on the bed. He hadn't really changed since yesterday.

"What do you want?" Powell asked.

"House wants to biopsy your skin; he sent me to get it."

Powell looked slightly surprised. "Oh. And you agreed."

"I had nothing to do with putting you in a coma or any of the subsequent tests."

"Which brings us to now."

"I read some of your articles," Cameron said.

"There were a lot of them."

"You've worked in medical research for fifty years," Cameron said. "For thirty-eight years - since 1967 - you've been - "

"1966," Powell said. He looked as if he understood her. "That was when I was first licensed to work with chattel human subjects."

"How many hundreds of people have you killed?" Cameron asked explosively. The articles had gone on and on. Research projects on heart failure, kidney disease, most recently cancer. Subjects - chattel humans - transfected with hepatic cancer cells to research different forms of treatment. After a while even the numbers had started making her feel sick. If Powell started talking like his articles, about "subjects euthanized" - she didn't know what she was going to do.

"I don't know," Powell said. "What I do know is we have discovered techniques that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives."

"You're not sorry," Cameron realized.

"I don't regret what I did. Informed consent, patient rights - holds back research."

Cameron picked up the sampling tool. She was so angry she had to make her hands steady. She sliced a chunk out of Powell's skin. He groaned in surprise and pain. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded weakly.

"Informed consent is holding back our diagnosis," Cameron said.

Powell blinked at her. "Good for you," he said at last. He sounded like he meant it. "Finally standing up for something; acting on what you believe."

**_tba_**

_Told you I'd try and be faster next time! In case anyone asks... I really couldn't make up my mind if Cameron would or wouldn't euthanize Ezra Powell in Collarverse as she did in the mainverse. (Making her the _first_ of House's fellows to kill someone, I noticed.) So I left it at that... ambiguous. And as for that check for five thousand dollars... yes, that's for the next chapter._


	4. Lines in the Sand

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**3.04 Lines in the Sand**

Wilson drove into work alone. Greg had got up and gone to work by himself.

Cuddy caught him as he went through the lobby. It was one of her most irritating habits.

"Why would Greg need five thousand dollars?" she demanded.

Cuddy had waited until Wilson had closed her office door, but only just: Wilson finished closing the door and made his face calm as if he were talking to a cancer patient's family.

"And why would you give him five thousand dollars?" Cuddy asked, just as Wilson turned round. She eyed him for a long moment. "No, I think I'd rather you didn't answer that question, Doctor Wilson. You may have to talk to our lawyers if he used it to buy a plane ticket."

"He deposited the check at the bank this morning...?" Wilson asked.

"He _cashed_ your check at the bank four minutes after it opened," Cuddy said. "The bank had no authority to prevent him, but they reported it to me very promptly. I've confirmed with the clinic and his fellows: he hasn't yet come to work. When did you last see him?"

Wilson swallowed. "Last night," he said truthfully. He had fallen into a deep, sweet sleep, holding Greg in his arms. Greg had been gone when he woke up.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Foreman saw Greg first. He didn't know how he recognised Greg, but he did.

"He isn't in the clinic." Chase put the phone down and looked from Foreman to Cameron.

Foreman nodded, just as the door opened and Doctor House came in. He was walking confidently, easily - using his cane, but as if he weren't handicapped. He was wearing a leather biker's jacket, unzipped, over a red t-shirt: the mark of his collar was clear on his throat, but he didn't look as if he cared.

"Good morning!"

"It's almost noon," Foreman said.

"Really?" House was smiling - and not the tooth-baring grin Foreman was used to. "That must be why I'm so hungry. Who's up for lunch?"

"What's with the jacket?" Cameron asked.

House turned to look at her, and seemed to deliberately strike a pose. "It keeps me warm, and cool. How does it know?"

"Where did you buy those clothes?" Cameron asked. "_How_ did you buy those clothes?"

House wore the same clothes that Greg had worn, that the hospital had bought for him. Foreman didn't know exactly what he was getting paid, but they all knew it wasn't much.

Chase picked up the patient folder that Cuddy had left on the table. "Ten-year-old severely autistic boy screams for his life for no reason."

"Thank you for saving me the trouble of deflecting that personal question," House said. "Who says we've got a new patient?"

"Doctor Cuddy," Foreman said. "She was looking for you."

House had taken the folder from Chase and was flipping through it: it looked careless, but Foreman knew from exasperating experience that Greg could pick up more information on one look than Foreman could. He had, however, already read the folder thoroughly while they were waiting for House.

"He is _severely_ autistic," Foreman said, "Can't talk, can't make eye contact. Screaming's probably his way of communicating."

"And he went to three different doctors who all said just that," House said.

"Wow, so clearly that can't be the answer," Foreman said. He'd met a lot of parents of autistic children. They found it hard to accept the finality of it. "His brain can't filter information, it's a constant assault on his senses. I'd scream too."

"Or it's something medical sounding like dysesthesia. Parents are convinced that there's something wrong with their son." House turned and walked out of the conference room. Chase and Cameron both looked bewildered. Foreman simply followed, keeping his face tightly expressionless.

"Since when do we start believing parents?" Cameron wanted to know. "Or anyone? Where are we going?"

"Elevator," House said, self-evidently. He pressed the button. "Dad was on Wall Street, mom was a partner in an accounting firm, when their son was diagnosed with autism they both quit."

"So they're overprotective and scared," Foreman said. He knew this situation. "That's all the more reason to - "

"They've studied this kid," House said. "Heard him scream a million times. Did ten years of caring for him. This is the first time they've brought him to a hospital." The elevator arrived. House stood aside for an oncology fellow and two nurses. They gave House and all three Diagnostics fellows the same peculiar look. Foreman frowned back, following House into the elevator.

"ER checked his throat," Foreman said. "No obstructions, nothing. Which means the only symptom was a scream, which is diagnostic of nothing."

"Kid clutched his chest," Chase said. "BP was elevated. Maybe there was chest pain."

"ER said the heart was fine," Foreman said.

House pressed the first-floor button. "Don't be so quick to dismiss pain."

"Where are we going?" Cameron asked.

"Down," House said. "Stool sample to check for parasites, blood culture to rule out infection and ANA for lupus."

"Because he screamed?" Cameron asked.

"Could also be an environmental reaction," Chase offered. "An allergy: dust, wheat, pollen, a toxin."

Foreman supposed they were heading for the clinic. Brenda Previn had been looking for Greg, too. House walked out into the lobby, and the three of them followed.

"Check the house," House said. "Run a lung ventilation scan. Lungs are in the chest too, right?"

"I had a date last night," Foreman said. He had read the whole file, thoroughly. House had _scanned_ it for about two minutes. "She screamed. Should we spend a hundred thousand dollars testing her?"

"Of course not," House said. "This isn't a veterinary hospital." He showed his teeth. "Zing!" He was walking towards Doctor Cuddy's office. He pushed the door open. "Look, if you don't think this kid is worth saving - " He said it loudly enough for Cuddy to hear.

"That's not what I'm saying!" Foreman said, exasperated. Cuddy was talking on the phone: she looked up, saw the four of them, and Foreman very badly wanted to be somewhere else.

"Well, that's too bad," House said loudly, "it's a good point. Kid's just a lump with tonsils. You know what it's going to be like trying to put an autistic kid into a nuclear scanner? I don't envy you guys." He let go of the door, and it swung shut in their faces. Chase and Cameron were already beating a retreat. Foreman followed.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

"My peeps said you wanted me," Greg said.

"We're going to have to do this later," Cuddy told Doctor Uppal. At least this wasn't a donor. "A kid in the clinic had an accident." She waited through Uppal expressing sympathy, and put the phone down.

"I need a disabled parking space," Greg said, and grinned at her.

He looked like _House_. No one else at the hospital would know this: Cuddy kept herself from grinning back. This was serious.

"Your manumission contract does not permit you to buy a car without permission from your patron - " Though if House had _already_ used the five thousand dollars Doctor Wilson had given him to buy a car, that was probably the most harmless thing he could have done with it. But Cuddy thought she would temporarily have the car confiscated just to make clear to House what his position was.

"Read it," House said cheerfully, carelessly. "Doesn't say I can't have a bike."

"What?" Cuddy realized she was gaping, and closed her mouth. House was wearing a leather biker's jacket. "Can you drive a bike?"

"Yes," House said. He was still grinning. "Turns out it's like... riding a bike. You don't forget how in eighteen years." He lifted his cane and brought it down on her desk. Not hard, but the click was perfectly audible. "And this says I get a parking space right by the front door, with one of those little signs with my name on it saying no one else can use it. No rush, by tomorrow morning will do."

"No," Cuddy said. "You were late to work today - "

"_Of course_ I was late," House said. "I was cashing a check, buying a bike." He tossed off a sloppy salute. "Won't happen again, boss!"

"You cannot have a disabled parking space here," Cuddy said, distinctly annoyed. "Perfectly adequate arrangements have been made for Doctor Wilson to bring you to work and take you home. Now go work in the clinic."

House turned away and walked out, head bowed. Watching him go, Cuddy actually felt slightly guilty. But she didn't want House to think he could have anything he wanted. That kind of freedom had led directly to Greg's enslavement. He had to be kept on a tight rein. She picked up the phone again. "Doctor Wilson?"

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Chase understood the difference between _rich_ and _comfortable_. The parents of the autistic kid were comfortable.

He didn't doubt they owned the house, outright - and had bought an extra lot to allow for a garden big enough for their kid to play in. They didn't own a slave - the slave quarters in the house had been turned into a child-sized gym with a trampoline - they obviously didn't go on vacation: but there were no signs, and he looked for them while he and Cameron were searching for toxins that they were in any financial trouble. Which meant they weren't faking the kid's illness to have an excuse for selling him.

Well, not because they were in financial trouble.

Foreman came back to Diagnostics looking exhausted. The kid had one of those hand-held computer games, and Chase guessed Foreman had tried to get it away from him so that the kid could go to the scanner.

"Where's Greg?" Foreman demanded.

"Still doing his clinic hours," Cameron said.

The phone rang. Chase picked it up.

"Is Foreman back?" House said abruptly.

"Yes, he just walked in the door," Chase said.

"Bring the whiteboard down to the clinic," House said.

There as a click at the end of the line. Chase stared at it for a moment, then told Foreman and Cameron. Foreman refused to help carry the whiteboard: Cameron looked dubious. Chase pocketed the marker pens and headed towards the elevator. No point in arguing about it.

They'd held DDXs in one of the clinic's exam rooms before, when Greg had been putting in long hours as the clinic's slave, but there were three doctors besides House doing their clinic hours, it was early afternoon and the clinic waiting room was crowded, and House seemed to think the only place to set up was by the reception desk.

The parents had the kid's day timetabled down to 15 minute intervals. They worked harder caring for him than they would have in their regular jobs. With no let up. No promise that he'd ever get better.

The middle of the clinic was hardly the place to share his theory that it was possible the parents were making the whole thng up.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Brenda was furious. Greg had been due to show up for scheduled hours in the morning, he hadn't arrived and he hadn't let her know about a Diagnostics case. Then he had shown up and she'd been sending the patients who'd been waiting longer, because the nurse on duty didn't think they really had anything wrong with them: Doctor House was usually good at handling them fast and getting them out.

Not this time. One patient after another disappeared into exam room one, stayed there long enough to explain their "symptoms" at length, and were ushered out again. Doctor House was working to rule.

There was nothing Brenda thought she could do about it, either. It was difficult even in the days when Greg could be sent down to the basement for a caning to teach him better manners. He wasn't being insolent, he wasn't being disobedient, he wasn't even taking longer over his patients than any other doctor might.

His three fellows came in, one of them lugging a whiteboard. Greg had just finished with a patient. He ignored the room full of waiting patients, walked over to his fellows, and gestured to put the whiteboard down, in front of the admissions desk. Greg hitched himself on to the desk, swung his cane beneath his legs, looked at the whiteboard, and started asking his fellows questions about whether they'd got a fecal smear.

Brenda moved in. "Hey, don't start with me," she warned. "We're backed up."

"I know this is hard for all of us," Greg said loudly, "but thanks to Doctor Cuddy I don't have an office so I have to work here."

Doctor Cameron sounded as surprised as Brenda. "What'd she do to your office?"

"She says I can't use it. So, whatever's bothering him it wasn't his lungs. What about the kid's house?"

Brenda didn't hear the rest. She knew Lisa Cuddy was in her office, alone, and this had got to the point where she wanted permission to use the security guards.

"What's this about ordering Greg to work in the clinic instead of his office?"

Lisa looked up from her work. "Damn it," she said wearily. "I ordered him to go work in the clinic. That's where he went?"

"Yes," Brenda said. "Now he's set up a DDX in the middle of the clinic."

Lisa sighed. "He wants a disabled-access parking space for his bike," she said.

Brenda frowned. "Am I missing something? What's the problem?"

"His manumission contract specifies he can't have a car without our permission. It doesn't say he can't have a bike. But we don't have to give him permission to park it here. He can get back and forth to the hospital in Doctor Wilson's car."

"Doctor Wilson distracts him," Brenda said. "Where did Greg get the money to buy a bike?"

"From Doctor Wilson," Lisa said. She glanced down at her desk, avoiding Brenda's eyes, then looked up again, and they both laughed.

"Still, we can't allow him to disrupt hospital business until he gets what he wants."

"Before, I'd just send him down to basement and let the supervisor deal with him."

Lisa looked like she was seriously considering that for a moment. "No. I'll have a word with Chris Barrie about removing him if he does this again. Send him over to my office."

Brenda glanced through the door. "He's already on his way over."

None of the fellows looked very happy to be in Cuddy's office as they trailed Greg in. He turned his back to Cuddy and asked them loudly "What'd you find in the stool sample?"

"As discussed," Foreman said, "it was negative for parasites."

"I didn't ask what you didn't find; I asked what you _did_ find in the stool sample."

"Stool. And traces of iron, zinc, calcium carbonate." Foreman's eyes flickered from Greg to Cuddy. He looked deeply uneasy.

"I'm going to count to three," Cuddy said, "and then, I'm going to fire you. One."

"Calcium carbonate, that's uhh... antidiarrheal, right?" Greg asked.

"Can we go now?" Chase said. All three were backed into the doorway.

"Two," Cuddy said.

"Think that's significant?" Greg asked. The door opened and all three of the fellows backed themselves out. Greg raised his voice, loud enough to be heard across the foyer "Think hard poops are significant?"

Brenda reached out and closed the door. Greg had, finally, turned to Cuddy. "Two and a half? Never threaten unless you're ready to deliver, makes you look weak. Thank God you don't have children."

Cuddy shook her head. "Doctor House." She spoke slowly and seriously. Brenda knew she was amused, but doubted Greg would know that. "You will not be allowed to disrupt hospital business in order to get a parking space. Either work in the clinic or in Diagnostics. If you don't want to work in the clinic, go home and don't get paid."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Eventually, Wilson made time to get down to the parking lot. There was a red sports bike scraped up on one side, squeezed in as near to the front entrance as it could get.

Greg had left the apartment while Wilson was sleeping, cashed the check, gone to a dealer, and bought bike, helmet, jacket, and who knows what else - all without getting permission from anyone. Without a hint or a clue what he wanted the money for.

"Well this, this is perfect."

"Yes," Greg said.

Wilson hadn't even heard him. Greg was wearing the jacket and carrying the helmet. He limped over to the bike.

"Two-wheeled vehicles that travel 150 miles an hour don't really go well with crippled, irresponsible - "

He stopped when Greg handed him his cane, and put his helmet on. He looked at Wilson. "Actually two-wheeled vehicles that go 180 miles an hour do not go well with healthy responsible architects who don't know how to separate breaking and turning." Greg had to lift his right leg with his hands to get seats on the bike. He settled himself on it. "Good news is, it brings the price right down."

"You're taking it back," Wilson said.

Greg put on a mock-whining tone. "Moooom!" He grinned at Wilson. "How about we talk about this some other time."

"You're going to kill yourself!" Wilson burst out.

"And by 'some other time'," Greg said, "I meant 'never'."

"Doctor House," Doctor Foreman called.

"We need to talk to you," Doctor Cameron said.

"Nice bike!" Doctor Chase said cheerfully.

All three of the Diagnostics fellows were walking over.

Greg called back cheerfully "Thank you." He added, without particularly lowering his voice, "See, that's how you do it. Ask first. Compliments."

"What do you do with your cane?" Cameron asked.

Wilson hadn't thought to move away from the bike. Greg removed the cane as neatly as he had handed it to Wilson, and twirled it, then clicked it into a holder on the side of the bike. "Evel Knievel had the same setup."

"And he broke every bone in his body," Cameron said.

Foreman said, self-importantly, "We went though all the imaging studies, and re-did blood cultures."

Greg turned on the bike and gently revved the engine. "I don't want hand-me-downs. I want brand new stuff."

"Well there's nothing..."

The bike engine's noise suddenly got much louder, drowning out Foreman, even when he raised his voice. "There's nothing - "

Greg said loudly "Sorry, I didn't catch that last part!"

Chase was laughing. Even Cameron was smiling. Foreman stopped trying to speak and Greg stopped revving the bike engine.

"There's nothing else we can do," Foreman said. "Stool sample's negative. Everything's negative. It's possible the kid was never sick."

"Oh well, we should let him go then. That just leaves cancer. Get a lung biopsy."

"You're leaving the hospital when you have a patient?" Wilson was startled.

"We have a ten year old with pleural effusion and conduction abnormality but no heart failure," Greg said. "Cuddy told me to go home."

"Was there a protein in the pleural fluid?" Wilson asked.

"Yeah, that's why we're thinking cancer," Greg said sarcastically. "Non-Hodgkin's, probably, so we want to do a lung biopsy."

"Lung biopsies usually come back negative," Wilson said. "You want to biopsy a lymph node under the arm."

Greg took his helmet off. He was looking at Wilson with an odd expression. "That's probably something an oncologist should do, right?"

Wilson realized all three fellows were staring at him. He rubbed the back of his neck. "There's nothing real tricky to it, just a biopsy."

Greg smiled. "Still, just to be safe, you mind?"

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Sarah hated the hospital. At home, Adam could be happy in his own way. And so was Dominic: once convinced Adam was autistic, he had switched careers. Their home was Dominic's workplace. He had taught himself how to do music therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, applied behavioural therapy: he had thrown himself into the 16-hour-day job of teaching Adam how to eat, play and learn. When Dominic found a diet that was said to help an autistic person, they'd all adopted it. They'd tried at various times gluten-free, soy-free, casein-free, yeast-free, corn-free, and a low sugar regime which Sarah was personally convinced was the only one that had actually helped: they were still on it.

She did freelance accountancy for small local firms. They didn't need the money - Dominic had poured the last of his Wall Street skills into making sure both of them would be comfortable for life and Adam would be financially secure even if they died. But more than once since Adam's diagnosis, Sarah had seriously thought about getting a no-fault divorce, just walking away. She loved Adam. She loved and admired Dominic. But sometimes that didn't help.

Adam hated the hospital. They'd taken one of his favourite handheld computer games with him, and he was more-or-less calm when he was playing that. She'd taken Adam's diet sheet and personally explained it to the hospital's head chef, with the support of the Dean of Medicine, and after that mealtimes got manageable: Adam would stop to eat. (They knew at least eight hospital donors, which might have helped: but Doctor cuddy just seemed to be a genuinely caring woman.)

But tests - any test that required taking Adam away from the room he was getting used to or having stuff done to him that he couldn't understand - were nightmarish. They never saw the same doctor twice for any test. Dominic was a very calm man. But he got frustrated and angry when "experts" wouldn't respect his expertise with Adam. And this was just the tests: what would happen when the treatments started for whatever was wrong with Adam?

This time it was an underarm biopsy they wanted: Adam was screaming and fighting again as the nurses tried to make him breathe the gas. Dominic had suggested twice they let him hold Adam to hold him still for the biopsy, but when the new doctor showed him the needle that needed to be used, precisely as possible, he stopped asking.

Sarah put an hand on his arm and stood beside him. She hated hearing Adam scream like this. They'd tried turning the lights down - sometimes a darkened room calmed Adam - but nothing helped. They had to leave the overhanging lights on so the nurses could see what they were doing. She could feel Dominic trembling.

The door opened and another doctor walked in. He said, loudly, "For the love of god, can't somebody shut that kid _up?_"

Sarah curled her hand round Dominic's arm, feeling him literally jerk with rage. He had immense self-control but he hated hearing anyone talk like that about Adam.

"Got people trying to work around here." This doctor glanced at them, but spoke to the new doctor. "Why don't you show him a teddy bear or something?"

"Who are you?" Dominic demanded.

"Somebody you'll never send a gift to." This doctor walked with a cane: he limped across to the bed where Adam was screaming.

The new doctor said, sounding both apologetic and annoyed, "This is doctor House, your son's doctor."

They hadn't met Doctor House. Dominic had been annoyed about that, but the nurses and fellows had said he never saw any of his patients. He was very tall. Sarah couldn't see his face.

Doctor House sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the mask. He said to one of the nurses, "High test please." Then he looked at Adam, and said, "Hey, hey, hey!" and put the mask to his face and began breathing from it, very loudly.

The new doctor said something, but Sarah didn't catch it. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Eating the red berries," Doctor House said. He was leaning so that Adam could see him breathing from the mask. He put the the mask down over Adam's nose and mouth, and Adam made a different noise - not the terrified screams, just his usual sound of protest when someone tried to get him to do something he didn't want to do. He also didn't struggle as much.

Doctor House took the mask back and breathed from it some more, loudly. Then slowly he put the mask over Adam's face, and this time Adam didn't scream or fight: he just accepted it as calmly as a glass of juice in the garden, and breathed in.

A few moments later, the new doctor and the nurses began preparations for the biopsy: Adam had gone under.

"He trusted you," Sarah said, because Dominic was speechless. They'd dealt with medical professionals when they had to, but they'd never before seen one get Adam's trust as fast as that.

"No, that wasn't trust," Doctor House said. He sounded woozy. Of course, he'd actually breathed in the gas. "That was self-preservation."

"No, that was huge," Dominic said, finding words at last. "It was like a conversation."

Doctor House tried to get up: unsteadily he banged into the overhanging lights. "Monkey's afraid to eat the red berries until he sees another monkey eat them. Monkey see, monkey do, that's all it was. Your kid's still just as messed up as when we admitted him." He walked away, stumbling into a trolley. The new doctor made a wry face at them, as if to apologize for Doctor House, but Dominic was clearly still too relieved and impressed to care.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

One of the nurses told Cameron about Doctor House's breathing nitrous oxide to show the autistic kid it was harmless, so she wasn't altogether surprised when he appeared at the lab, still looking a little dazed and blinking. He sat down on one of the lab stools and a minute or so later, Wilson arrived with the biopsy samples, looking annoyed.

"That was sensitive," Wilson said.

House looked at Wilson, then at Cameron. "You have pretty hair."

Wilson glanced over at Cameron. He frowned. Cameron kept her face expressionless. She was enjoying this more than she'd expected: Wilson seemed confused and uncertain, Greg confident and irritating. She understood Wilson's worry over Greg's safety - she'd always thought he cared for Greg, even if Chase and Foreman both dismissed that - but she liked the newly-confident Greg.

Cameron was preparing the slides. Wilson was setting up the microscope. Greg sat there, staring off into space. His face looked curiously relaxed.

"Hope is all those parents have going for them," Wilson said suddenly, angrily.

"No," Greg said. "Hope is what's making them miserable. What they should do is get a cocker spaniel. A dog would look them in the eye, wag his tail when he's happy, lick their face, show them love."

Cameron was reminded, disturbingly, of Chase's reaction to the family's home when they'd searched it earlier. He'd speculated if the parents would sell Adam if they couldn't cure him. Of course they wouldn't - they obviously loved Adam - but of course they wanted him not to be autistic. "Is it so wrong for them to want to have a normal child? It's normal to want to be normal."

Greg looked at her. No: Doctor House. Cameron looked away, down at the slides she was preparing. Doctor House said, casually, "Spoken like a true circle queen. See, skinny socially privileged white people get to draw this neat little circle, and everyone inside the circle is normal, anyone outside the circle should be beaten, broken and reset so they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized or worse, pitied."

That was infuriating. "So it's wrong to feel sorry for this little boy?"

"Why would you feel sorry for someone who gets to opt out of the inane courteous formalities which are utterly meaningless, insincere and therefore degrading? This kid doesn't have to pretend to be interested in your back pain or your excretions or your grandma's itchy place. Can you imagine how liberating it would be to live a life free of all the mind-numbing social niceties? I don't pity this kid, I envy him."

"Er, no cancer..." Doctor Wilson said. "Because these aren't lymph cells."

"Then what are they?" Cameron was startled. She stepped over to the microscope, and Wilson stepped back to give her room.

"Liver cells," Wilson said.

House reached out to the display controls to put the microscope image up on the display screen. "Wow. Liver cells under his arm. I wonder what he's got where his liver's supposed to be."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

It was well after eight in the evening, but Cuddy was still in her office. Her secretary had gone home. Wilson knocked and walked in.

"Good evening. How much would it cost to give Doctor House a handicapped space for his bike?"

"You want me to surrender to Greg's coup?"

"No, no, you proactively give him what he wants."

Cuddy was packing up to go, but she sat down again and looked at Wilson. "I defeat him by surrendering to him?" she said slowly.

"He'll never see it coming. Look, I'll pay for it myself."

"What is this?" Cuddy was looking at him strangely.

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "I work with a lot of children," he said. "Children are difficult patients."

"Yes?" Cuddy frowned. "This is about Greg's case?"

"He solved it. He communicated with the kid. He said we needed to learn how to speak autistic. The patient had an infestation of raccoon roundworms. He was trying to tell his parents he could see wiggly lines in his eye, and Greg got it."

"You were impressed."

"Greg was ... _confident_," Wilson said. "That was good for his patient." Despite himself, Wilson was remembering a couple of times when Greg had vomited up everything in his belly when Wilson had taken him back to his hotel room. That terrified, shaking slave had been a world away from the doctor who'd impressed Adam's parents. "I'll take responsibility for making sure he doesn't use the bike when it would be dangerous."

Cuddy made a note. She looked back at Wilson. "I'll think about it."

"But - "

"I said I'd think about it. Good night, Doctor Wilson."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson knocked on the door of Greg's room. The bike was parked in Wilson's space outside the apartment building. He'd have to arrange proper parking for it here.

Greg opened the door, leant against it. He looked at Wilson with blank eyes. "No thanks," he said.

"You don't even know what I'm about to say," Wilson said, half-amused.

"Oh? I thought you wanted another game of stick," Greg said. "You don't get seconds half price."

"What I was going to tell you," Wilson said, annoyed now, "is that I've had a talk with Doctor Cuddy and I think she'll let you have a handicapped parking space at the hospital."

"I know that," Greg said.

"You knew...?"

"Sure. She can't fire me. She can keep me working for her for cut rates, but if she fires me, I can work for any other hospital. She can pay me like a janitor, but she'll have to give me that parking spot."

"If she fired you, you still wouldn't be allowed to leave the state," Wilson said, with a leap of alarm.

Greg shrugged. "There's a lot of hospitals in New Jersey. And I wouldn't have to live with _you_ any more."

Wilson stared. Greg was looking back at him with a blank, cold expression, almost insolent in its intensity.

"You _liked_ it," Wilson said, out of a roil of other feelings.

"You can make me come," Greg said. "You couldn't make me like it." He closed the door in Wilson's face.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Moving Adam from one place to another was something Dominic didn't ever rush over. He knew his son better than anyone: it was important they take their time slowly packing up from the hospital room where they had stayed, telling Adam what they were doing and where they were going.

Sarah said, "That doctor... Doctor House. He's outside."

Dominic glanced out through the glass wall. The doctor they'd seen only twice, who'd lectured him on not being able to "speak autistic", who'd saved his son's life, was sitting on the couch outside the room.

They were ready to go. Outside, they paused by the couch. The doctor looked up at them, and didn't speak.

"Listen... thanks." Dominic said.

"You saved his life," Sarah said.

"Yeah," the doctor said. "I know." He didn't sound enthused, even though he was here to see them go.

They turned away, guiding Adam with them. Dominic felt Adam turn from under his hand: he knew better than to grab Adam. They both stopped.

Adam went over to Doctor House. He wasn't making eye contact, but he was definitely, intentionally, making an approach. Dominic put his hand on Sarah's arm to stop her moving. He wanted to see what Adam was going to do.

Adam handed the doctor his PSP game. The doctor took it. He was staring at Adam. After a moment, Adam looked at him. For a couple of seconds, there was clear eye contact.

Dominic swallowed. That was the first time in Adam's life he'd ever said, as best he could, "Thank you" to anyone but Dominic or Sarah. He glanced at Sarah, saw her eyes full of tears. Adam was coming back towards them. Dominic reached out and embraced him. "You're so good!" he said, and kissed the top of his head. He turned back and smiled at Doctor House. The doctor was sitting, the PSP in his hand, with a small smile on his face - still wide-eyed with surprise, Dominic thought, and took Sarah's hand. Everything was going to be all right.

_tba_

_...and next episode, Tritter arc begins!_


	5. Fools for Love

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

_Guys, I am so sorry I kept you waiting for this episode for so long, but I got Kind Of Distracted by the real life ending of the canon series. Plus work. Pfft, work.  
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_I'm sure we're all glad to know that House really does love Wilson, and Wilson really does love House, and this series is now wildly OOC and OTT and cracky and weird... so, let the fun continue! I have weird plot twists till the start of season five anyway!  
><em>

**3.05 Fools for Love**

Cameron liked this case. It was interesting enough for House, and she liked the couple. "Twenty year old married African-American female couldn't breathe. Anaphylaxis-like throat-swelling."

"Children?" House asked.

They were both college students, and working full-time. No children, unsurprisingly, but Tracy might be pregnant. "You think pregnancy would explain - " Cameron started, and House cut her off.

"It explains the marriage. Who the hell gets married at twenty?"

Foreman said "I'm guessing... people in love?" Cameron glanced at him gratefully. Neither he nor Chase were looking at the patient file: they evidently didn't expect it to be interesting.

"Show me a twenty-year-old who's not in love," House said. "You get married at twenty, you're going to be shocked at who you're living with at thirty." He wasn't looking at them, or at the file: he was staring through the window into the hall. Once, that would have meant a pair of security guards had arrived, and their DDX was about to be interrupted. Cameron didn't look round. Cuddy couldn't send security to get House these days.

"Not allergies, negative on the skin test - " Cameron went on. Four days of antihistamines and steroids, and the swelling in the young woman's throat had only just started to go down.

"Who's he talking to?" House said out loud.

"What?" Cameron said.

"It's got an ass," House said, "technically that makes it a who."

Cameron turned and looked. Doctor Wilson was in the hall outside. He was talking to a new pediatric nurse, Wendy Bradshaw or Brown. They seemed to be having a social conversation, not an oncology one: Wilson said something, Wendy laughed.

"You seen her here before?" House asked, still not looking at her: he was watching Wilson.

"Couple times," Cameron said. "I tried following her home, but she gave me the slip."

Foreman was amused. Chase and House both gave her weirdly identical unamused looks. "Why is she hanging out here?" House asked.

"Anyone interested in what happened with the swelling?" Cameron asked.

"She's in Peds, it's the next wing over." House sounded as if he was thinking out loud. "If he's not hitting that then why's she here?"

"Because I'm hitting that and it's totally hot," Cameron said.

All three men looked at her suddenly shocked into attention.

"Swelling took four days to resolve," Cameron said. "Patient has unexplained intensive abdominal pains."

"So explain them," House said. "Wake me when they've done an exploratory laparotomy. Anybody know her? Know her story?"

"Up an' at 'em," Cameron said. She spread the notes and images from the patient's file on the table in front of House. "They did a laparotomy. Liver, bowel, gall bladder, appendix all clean."

"Belly pain plus throat swelling," House said thoughtfully.

"She was in some sort of assault right? Simple neck trauma," Chase suggested.

"He says - " Jeremy, the husband " - they didn't touch her neck. And if they did, it would have been resolved by now."

House's attention was off Doctor Wilson. Or Wilson had walked out of view. He sat down at the table to look at the file.

"Didn't need to touch her," Foreman said, finally looking at the notes. "Some guy coughed on her, right?"

Cameron shook her head. "He's in jail and he's completely healthy except for the broken head he got from the beating he took." From Jeremy. The police who'd arrested the thug had been impressed enough to tell Cameron at length.

Chase got up and walked around the table to stand behind House and look down at the case file. House closed the file and looked up at Chase.

"There's pot," Chase said. "On the tox screen. Salmonella from the pot would explain the stomach pains."

House nodded briefly, and opened the file again.

"At a stretch, she'd have a fever," Foreman said.

"She's on steroids from the swelling therefore no fever," Chase said. "And the smoking explains the throat."

"Sorry, take it back, _that's_ a stretch," Foreman retorted.

"Got a better idea?" House asked.

Cameron breathed out with silent relief. This was now a Diagnostics case. She glanced at the hall. Wilson was out of sight.

"Then stretch away," House said. "Start her on floroquinolone for the salmonella."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

There were three things on Michael Tritter's mind as he sat in the waiting room at the damn free clinic.

The first thing was that there were big No Smoking signs plastered all over the place and he wanted a cigarette. The second thing was that he had given up smoking two weeks ago and he _would not_ have a cigarette.

The third thing was sometimes worry about the raw red patches on his dick, and sometimes fury at the stupidity of owners who let their slaves loose without a health check, and sometimes frustration at the dead ends that were all his current investigation kept coming up with.

The third one changed, but the first two were always the same. For two hours. He'd fucked one of the dead ends. He hadn't worn a condom. He'd given up smoking.

When the receptionist finally pointed him at an exam room, the doctor wasn't even there. But there was a "Thank you for not smoking!" sign on the wall. There were even limits on how much nicotine gum he could chew. He'd finished a piece on the way over here. And waited for two hours. Without a cigarette.

Those red marks on his dick. Get tested, find out what he had, get antibiotics, figure out what to do with the slaves he'd fucked since.

The doctor limped in. He walked leaning on a cane. He didn't say hello or he was sorry to keep Tritter waiting.

"I was waiting two hours out there," Tritter let him know. He looked at the No Smoking sign again and put a fresh piece of nicotine gum in his mouth.

"Fascinating," the doctor said in a dry voice, closing the door. He was holding a patient file. "Have you considered a career as a memoirist?" There was a stool by the wall: the doctor sat down on it. He looked at Tritter's groin. "Let's see it."

No _Hello, my name is Doctor Whatever_ Tritter noted. Most of the people who came to this clinic were probably no-income types one step away from slavery, but if the doctor had looked at Tritter's file with any attention, he'd have seen _police detective_ and known that his current patient wasn't one of them.

"You don't introduce yourself?" Tritter asked, keeping his voice slow and polite. He unzipped his pants. His dick hurt.

"Sorry," the doctor said, unapologetic. "I thought you were waiting two hours, didn't know you wanted to chat." He put on fake-friendliness. "Hi, I'm Greg. How 'bout that local sports team?" He looked at Tritter's dick. "It's not an infection."

"How can you tell - " Tritter wasn't reassured. This was the kind of asshole guy who made trouble for everyone by always assuming he knew best.

"You want me to touch you? It's your private place." The doctor smirked. "You're chewing nicotine gum which causes dehydration which causes wear and tear. Try a lubricant - or foreplay if you're cheap."

Tritter kept his temper. He hadn't waited for two hours to be dismissed like this. If he was clear, that was good news, but the point of coming here was to get a test. "Just take a swab and get it tested, OK?"

"Sorry," the doctor said, absolutely dismissive. "Already met this month's quota of useless tests for stubborn idiots." He stood up again, his white lab coat shifting, and Tritter saw two things.

The doctor's pupils were dilated. He was on some kind of narcotic.

The doctor's neck was marked with a scar. Some time, not too long ago, it had been wearing a collar.

"You're a slave," Tritter said.

"Wow, you're like a... detective or something," the thing said. He was moving towards the door.

Tritter kicked at the thing's cane. It was almost funny how it went down. Almost. Tritter was still mad. The slave landed on his knees and Tritter caught his arms, catching his weight and shoving him back.

"You're smart," Tritter said slowly, into the slave's face. "and you're funny. How did you think you could get away with it? Because of your cane?" He jerked the slave, almost shaking him. "You're not actually getting away with it, you know that?"

The slave opened his mouth to say something.

Tritter took the slave's face in his hand and tilted his head, forcibly, checking the mark. Collared till recently. A bullet scar said why the collar had been removed, but not why it hadn't been replaced.

"Who the fuck put you up to this?" Tritter murmured out loud. He was tempted to fuck the slave's mouth, but he didn't have any condoms on him, his dick hurt, and he _still_ didn't know what the red marks were. "Whatever. Take a swab, get the damn test done. Clear?" He let go of the slave's face.

"Yes," the slave whispered. "Sir."

The slave seemed to know what he was doing: Tritter had been tested before. The slave scrabbled to his feet, using his cane and the edge of the stool, picked up what he needed, and knelt down again like a good boy to take the swab and seal it. "This slave needs..." The slave's voice was small and broken. "For the test... sir..." He picked out a thermometer out of a drawer. It looked thicker and sturdier. "Sir... your temperature... anal reading."

"What?" Tritter looked incredulously at the slave. "You're kidding me."

"Sir, if you have an infection, you have a fever. This slave needs to be sure you..." The slave swalllowed. "You're chewing nicotine gum, sir, which changes the temperature of your mouth, so for an accurate reading..." The slave dropped to his knees again, head bowed.

Tritter stared down at him thoughtfully. That all could be true. He remembered reading something about the gum throwing off a temperature reading. He should have waited till he was out of the clinic before he'd had his next piece of gum. The slave probably just didn't want to make a mistake, after how Tritter had made clear to him what he was in for. He shrugged a little, turned, and pulled down his pants a bit more to give the slave access. The end of the thermometer was cold and dry and the slave shoved it in deep without much care, giving Tritter his first suspicion.

"Don't move," the slave said, his voice sounding a little different. "Remember, you broke it, you bought it." Then he walked out of the room, closing the door. Leaving Tritter with the gradually rising realisation that the slave wasn't coming back.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

House had casually bet Foreman a hundred bucks that the stress text would work. And it had, sort of. Just on the wrong patient. Jeremy was now as sick as Tracy.

"Told you it would work," House said cheerfully. He looked confident and happy since he came back from his clinic duty.

"It worked on the wrong patient," Foreman said grudgingly.

"We can spend all day arguing right and wrong. Give me the hundred bucks," House said, and held out his hand, making a "pay me" motion with his fingers. Three months ago it wouldn't have been legal for him to have that kind of money in his hands, and in any case, Foreman hadn't accepted the bet.

"We could spend all day arguing whether we bet or not. Give me the hundred bucks," House said.

"Come on Foreman, pay up," Chase said. "He won! Or he just never finished the DDX."

Foreman made a mental note to talk to Doctor Cuddy about giving Greg a pay rise, and handed over the hundred dollars. "Husband's test showed no MI. No aortic dissection. It's not his heart, it's just nonspecific chest and abdominal pain."

"So, psychosomatic? Panic attack?" House asked, moving to the whiteboard and tucking the money invisibly away.

"Pain persisted after he got Lorazepam and morphine," Cameron said.

"Chest, stomach, throat. What does it all mean?" House asked. He'd written down what Foreman said on the whiteboard.

"Why assume one disease?" Foreman asked. "His chest, her throat."

"So it's just a coincidence that they both got crippling stomach pains. Wow, they really are a great couple. So much in common."

"If they're married and caught the same disease, they either got it from each other, or in the same place," Cameron said.

"Infectious or environmental. All you have to do is check out parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi, prions, radiation, toxins, chemicals, or it's internet porn related. I ll check the internet, you guys cover the rest of the stuff."

Foreman was looking forward to getting out of the hospital and off for the jazz festival. At least the rest of the team didn't know about that. He'd have to warn Wendy about not hanging out near Diagnostics.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

A nurse came in ten minutes after the slave had left the clinic room. She removed the thermometer, told him he didn't have a fever, took another swab, and advised him that his test results would be given to him in an hour. She kept her voice absolutely level, very unprovocative.

Tritter rebuckled his belt. "Where's the slave?" he said.

The nurse frowned at him. "I don't know what you mean."

"The slave you let dress up in a white coat to play fucking jokes," Tritter said.

There was a pause. Tritter watched that sink in.

"Who's in charge here?" he said.

"I'm the head of the clinic," the nurse said.

"I want to get my hands on that slave and kill him," Tritter told her, slow and calm. "But I'm not going to do that, because I expect he's valuable property. Who's his supervisor? You?"

The nurse went on looking at him for a moment longer. Finally she nodded. "I'm not his supervisor. He's not a slave. I think you need to speak with Doctor Cuddy."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

"Is this sarcoidosis?" Greg asked. He put down two scans on the desk.

Wilson picked them up and glanced at them. "It's pretty nonspecific. Could be granulomas, could be plaques." There was a third item, a leaflet about a jazz weekend in the Poconos. "What's this?"

He looked up. Greg was studying him closely. Wilson frowned back. He liked jazz, but ... "You don t... no." Even if Greg wanted Wilson to take him, Wilson doubted Cuddy would allow it. "I don t think it's sarcoidosis."

About an hour later, the phone rang. "Cuddy."

"Hello," Wilson said, surprised. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to cover the hospital's ass," Cuddy said. "Diagnostics wants to do a biopsy. We need the husband's consent. Greg seems to think you can present the case to him."

"_Greg_ thinks that?"

The brain biopsy did turn out to be a logical option. The first patient's disease was more advanced: her husband was still conscious. And resisting heartily.

"She's brilliant. All A's in college while working full-time. I can t do that to her."

"And if you both die," Wilson said gently, "you think she'd want that?"

"Do it on me instead."

"It's not in your brain," Wilson explained.

"It will be. It's the same disease, right? Do it then."

"She could die before you show the symptoms," Wilson said

The young man stared over at his wife. "Then stop treating me."

And that was a decision he wouldn't be moved from. After a while, Wilson got up and left. Greg was waiting just outside.

"Great job. Why don't you just shoot him in the head?" he demanded.

"Hold on, that gives me an idea," Wilson said tiredly. He had tried. "You know what could save this couple, lots of misdirected sarcasm."

"They're dead," Greg snapped. "Yelling at you might prevent you from screwing up like this - "

Wilson interrupted him. "I did what I was asked to do."

"Get me the biopsy!"

"Present the patient with his options," Wilson said.

"Two options: biopsy or no biopsy," Greg said. "He chose the third, no treatment. How do you even do that?"

Wilson stared at him. He had said to Cuddy, and honestly thought he meant it, that he'd like a more self-confident Greg. Not one berating him in a public hallway. Right now he'd like to bend Greg over his desk and beat his ass.

Greg had turned his back on Wilson and was limping off to the elevators as briskly as he could.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The test results were negative. That was a huge weight of Tritter's back. If not for the slave who needed dealt with, Tritter would now be heading back, comfortable in the knowledge that he didn't need to explain to anyone that he'd accidentally got infected off some evidence he'd fucked and potentially infected some more evidence when he'd fucked that.

But he did have to deal with the slave.

Doctor Cuddy was apologetic and understanding. Tritter sat on one of the comfortable chairs in her office, a cup of freshly-made coffee in front of him, and listened to her bullshit him. She explained Greg had been an expensive slave, but was now free. Tritter saved his breath and didn't bother explaining to her that slaves never got free: they were processed into objects for use and that couldn't be changed. She had already been told by Nurse Previn what had happened, she had warned the slave he would be expected to make amends to Tritter -

"Legally, what he did to me was assault," Tritter said. "I can sue you. Whatever compensation I got, any court would order your slave back to the New Jersey Center for re-processing." He paused a beat, just time to get her really worried. "I don't want to do that." He smiled, deliberately. "I don't want to sue this hospital. But I do want to make sure your slave is kept under control."

There was a small pause. Doctor Cuddy stared at him, her eyes cold and assessing. Finally she said, levely, "This hospital can't afford to have Greg made unfit for work. Either by Center re-processing or because he's ... vandalised."

Tritter stared back. He understood that attitude. He wondered if he should tell her about the narcotics-laden look in the slave's eyes, and decided that he could reserve that for later. "I won't damage him," he said.

Cuddy nodded. She reached for her desk phone and then the door opened and the slave limped in.

"I was just going to call you," Cuddy said.

"I need a court order to biopsy this woman s brain," the slave said briskly. He held out a patient file. Cuddy took it from him.

"I'll deal with this," she said.

"Good," the slave said.

"Speaking of litigation..." Cuddy stood up. "Greg, this is Michael Tritter. You can talk to Greg here. Mr Tritter, I'll be back in fifteen minutes." She walked out and closed the door.

"I want to beat the crap out of you," Tritter said. "Come here."

The slave stood still. He was leaning on the cane. "Less good."

"Come here," Tritter ordered.

The slave shook his head. He was eyeing Tritter with an appalling lack of fear. "You want an apology? If anything, you deserved a bigger thermometer."

The door opened again. Three free doctors came in. The slave's head jerked towards them. "What's wrong?"

"Jeremy's worse."

None of the doctors were looking at Tritter. The slave turned and walked away, saying briskly, "Then that's what's right. You cut the stubborn jerk's head open and take a slice - "

"It's not his brain - " The door closed behind the female doctor, who was last to leave, the only one of the three to give Tritter even a glance.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd_

Chase didn't like the hereditary angioedema diagnosis, though House was right, the symptoms fit perfectly.

_"It's an incredibly rare disease. They would both have to have a parent - "_

_"Is it a coincidence that your sister has great hair, or that these two have green eyes?"_

They were in the ward. House was back in the Diagnostics office, but the three of them were standing over Jeremy, who was coming round from the operation to remove ischemic bowel that wasn't, and Tracy, who would come out of her coma soon if House was right and they were brother and sister. Half.

"I almost hope she stays in a coma," Cameron said. She was looking at them with an awful kind of pity, and Chase, who normally liked her, found he didn't like her at all at that moment.

"That's sweet, Cameron."

"I'd like to avoid shattering both of their lives," Cameron protested.

"You don't think dying will do that?" Chase asked her.

Cameron might have answered, but Tracy moved her finger, and the oximeter fell off her finger, and that woke Jeremy up. He could hardly move, but he twisted his head to look at her. "Tracy, Tracy!"

His wife (sister) his wife's eyes opened.

"She's awake. Oh God, baby, it's going to be okay."

House was right. They were brother and sister. Awake, conscious, looking at each other: the family resemblance was apparent. In silence, the three of them went back to Diagnostics to tell him. Wilson was leaving as they passed: he went on with a nod at them.

"Awesome, can I tell them?" House sounded pleased.

"We've obviously got to let them know what s wrong, but the cause, the brother-sister thing..." Foreman trailed off. He liked Jeremy, that had been obvious for ages, and Foreman didn't like many of their patients.

"Good plan," House said. "You've just got to keep them away from doctors, the internet, and anyone who's not a total moron."

"He was willing to die to save her. You've got to give him time to recover - "

"He might be a little vexed that you kept letting him hump his sister in the mean time."

House was right. Chase kept quiet. He didn't want to get handed the job of breaking to the two of them, and he didn't think Cameron should.

"Unless their dad was also the product of an incestuous union, the chances of serious complications are minimal."

"Noble of you to take that risk," House said. "Tell them, or I will."

Foreman swung away. House glanced up at Chase and Cameron, shrugged a dismissal, and picked up a hand-held video game from his desk.

Chase was on call this weekend. He started packing up his laptop and the medical journals he hadn't read: he spent on-call weekends playing catch-up on his reading. He wasn't going to ask Cameron to wear the beeper for an hour or two so he could get some shopping done, right now he didn't want to owe her any favors, but if Foreman wouldn't, he'd spend the weekend living on takeout.

House was playing with a video game. He was probably waiting for Wilson to get out of the way, though Chase supposed he'd probably still have to spend the weekend with him, unless they had a case.

"Hey, Foreman, can you wear the beeper for a couple hours this weekend?" he asked, when Foreman came back. He was startled when Foreman gave him a glowering look. "What?"

"We just destroyed two peoples' lives," Foreman said.

"I'm not allowed to run errands any more?"

"I'd like to see some sign that it affects you, or that you recognize that it affects other people."

Oh, that was pompous. It was a bad end to the case, but it could be worse: they were both still alive. "So are you going to wear the beeper or not?" Chase asked.

"Sorry, can't." Foreman was packing his laptop up.

"You just want to punish me." Fair point. Chase knew Cameron would love it if Chase called her and asked her to wear the beeper for a couple of hours. He was deliberately planning not to do that.

"I'm busy," Foreman said. He was trying to sound flat and unexcited, but Chase caught a note of anticipation in his voice.

"With what?"

"I'm going out of town," Foreman said.

House looked up from the handheld video game he was playing "Where are you going?" He paused. "Jazz weekend in the Poconos?"

Foreman shrugged at House. "You hoped _Wilson_ had a girlfriend," he said after a moment, flatly. "You're just going to have to learn to live with him, aren't you?"

He walked out. Chase cast a glance at House, and hastily followed Foreman. Foreman and the Peds nurse was saying hello. Looked like Cameron wasn't hitting that after all.

Chase went home for a weekend of take-out.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The slave was registered as living at the address of Doctor James Wilson, head of the oncology department, but Doctor Wilson left the hospital alone on Friday night.

Tritter wondered if the slave was required to overnight in the hospital at weekends, but he waited, and he was glad he did. The slave left the hospital after dark, but his height and gait were obvious in the hospital car park. He walked to a motorbike.

The slave was taking a bike home. His owner - his _patron_ - must be stupid. The slave was out of control.

Tritter fell into traffic behind the motorbike. There was a 25-mile zone that the slave would have to pass through, and only the most cautious driver took that road at a legal 25 during the night: it bordered on a school, and was - outside school hours - a long, straight, empty stretch of road, an easy 40 or 50 zone.

Sure enough, the slave didn't slow. Tritter pulled in close behind and signalled the bike to stop. He got out of the car slowly, peacefully content with the world for the first time in days.

The slave recognized him. "If you've come to return the thermometer, don't bother. I've moved on."

"If you'd actually read my chart, you'd know that I'm a cop. You were going 40 in a 25 zone."

"Oh, come on. This isn't because I was speeding, it's because I'm Latino." The slave grinned at him.

"License, registration, proof of insurance."

"Sorry, cool jacket. Only pockets for important stuff." The slave lifted his arms in a careless shrug. True, if the object were really free, a traffic cop would issue a warning, maybe a ticket: the papers would have to be shown up at a precinct station, but the driver didn't need to carry them on him."

"That's a shame," Tritter said. He was standing close enough to the slave to see him shiver.

"Fifty buck ticket. Is that your way of beating me up, or is that the price for sticking something in you?"

"You were high when you were examining a patient. You were high when you were in your patron's office. I'm betting that you're holding right now."

"I wasn't weaving, I'm not drunk, you ve got no reason to - "

Tritter caught hold of the slave's face with one hand, and shone a flashlight into his eyes.

"Pupils dilated," Tritter said, for the record. "Appears to be under the influence of a narcotic. Turn around, put your hands behind your head." He didn't wait for the slave to obey: he handled slaves easily, he always had. The jacket had a zipped pocket with something in it; a prescription vial with pills.

"Got a prescription?"

"I'm a cripple who works in a hospital. You don't think I've got a valid prescription?"

"You are under arrest for possession of narcotics," Tritter said. He cuffed the slave. "You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." He moved the slave back to his car, called in the bike - the slave's patron might choose to get it back - and opened up the back of the car.

"I want to make a phone call," the slave said.

Tritter ignored him. He manhandled the slave into the back, and fitted his ankles into the leg-irons. When the slave was secure, he leaned closer. "One thing you wouldn't have found out from my chart," he said quietly. "But you should have figured it, boy. I used to work for the New Jersey Slaves Administration Center. I know how to handle things like you. And that's where you're going. Back to processing."

_tba_

_(Assuming anyone still wants to keep reading now the show's over? Let me know...)_


	6. Que Sera Sera

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

_**3.06 Que Sera Sera**_

The phone rang when Cuddy was on her first herbal tea of Monday morning. She'd cut down on coffee, and cut out alcohol completely.

Just in case.

The phone call was from the New Jersey Slave Center. They'd been messaged on Saturday by Princeton's police department, about a runaway slave. Due to some kind of communication problem, the identity of the slave hadn't been properly confirmed for twenty-four hours - there had not thought to be any great urgency, since the slave had been kept in a cage at the precinct where he had been recaptured -

Cuddy tapped her fingers impatient. Probably the news about the missing hospital slave was in one of the emails she hadn't read yet, but it should have been marked urgent.

The identity of the slave had been confirmed, and he was not a slave, but a freedman, supposed to be living under supervision by his patron -

Cuddy's jaw dropped. Greg. Wilson. Greg _should_ have spent the weekend safely at home with Wilson. Wilson _should_ have reported Greg had gone missing.

"This is a courtesy call," the Center administrator finished. "We understand the precinct that recovered the freedman will be delivering him to the hospital this morning."

"Thank you," Cuddy said, very nicely, and waited until they had put the phone down before she slammed down the handset. Then she paged security. Greg was going to be delivered to her office urgently as soon as he was brought in.

There _was_ an email from Wilson. He explained Greg had gone missing, he'd called the police, the police had told him Greg was in custody and they'd contact Greg's patron. Wilson had sent the email Saturday, asking Cuddy to let him know when the police got in touch with her: Greg had been arrested for speeding, driving without a license, and resisting arrest.

Cuddy picked up the phone again. She wanted Greg taken to the clinic - it wasn't open yet - and she needed Brenda.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson had got the bike back on Saturday.

He was honestly not sure why he'd done that. The amount to pay had been trivial - relatively speaking: a speeding fine, the cost of towing. Plus, since there was no way _he_ was going to ride it, the cost of having it brought back to his address.

He doubted if Greg was going to be grateful.

Or apologetic. Even though if Greg had simply accepted that Wilson would take him to the hospital and home again by car, he would never have got into this situation.

Wilson went into the slave-quarters room. The hall carpet stopped at the door. The floor was blue lino, smooth and slightly worn. The walls were painted dull green. The only furnishings had been bunk beds, a metal frame one above the other, and a metal-frame wardrobe. Greg's work clothes were hung up in the wardrobe.

Greg had pulled the mattresses on to the floor, and covered them with a sheet he must have taken from Wilson's supply. He had a pillow, though Wilson hadn't noticed any missing, and two blankets. All awkwardly but quite neatly made into a bed, using the wall as a headboard, the mattresses laid out in a t-shape that gave Greg enough length for his six-foot-plus frame.

On the upper shelf of bunk, Greg had piled folded t-shirts, underwear, rolled-up socks. On the lower bunk, there were books - a motorcycle maintenance guide, battered and thumbed with oil stains, a couple of medical textbooks and a small pile of journals, from the hospital, and half a dozen used paperbacks - a book with a shabby pink cover with My Friend Leonard traced on the front, a detective novel called Dark Tort, a book with a dog on the cover called Marley and Me, a couple of thrillers by Patricia Cornwell and Sue Grafton - writers Wilson had never read but whose names he recognised from novels his patients read on the oncology wards, and some kind of fantasy novel with a blurb by Harlan Ellison on the front cover. All of them, from the rubber stamp on the inside front cover, Greg had bought from Goodwill.

Wilson dropped the motorcycle keys on the maintenance guide, and glanced through the door-frame into the tiny bathroom attached to the slave quarters. Greg had towels hung on the side of the shower cubicle - cheap and brightly-coloured, bought God knows where, Wilson had large clean white bath sheets in his own bathroom that Greg could have borrowed.

On the back of the door, Greg had taped a picture - a movie poster, Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. The Johnny Cash biopic that had come out a year or two ago. The two were standing in an alley, looking over their shoulders at the camera, a kind of wary, yet welcoming expression on their faces.

Wilson looked round again. The old battered jazz trumpet that John Henry Giles had given Greg wasn't conspicuously placed, but he saw it when he was looking for it, leaning up against one wall. But the guitar he'd given Greg was nowhere to be seen.

On Sunday, Wilson went for a walk. There was a park not far away, a small neighborhood of stores. The Goodwill where Greg had bought the books was on that street. Wilson stepped inside, briefly, and looked around. The man behind the counter looked at him curiously, and Wilson avoided his gaze.

He had got a decorator to furnish his home, with half an hour's conversation about "colors" and "moods" that had worked out just fine. He had books properly shelved, and sets of china and silverware, and altogether his home looked pleasant and professional and smooth.

Greg's room looked ... messy. Lived-in. Comfortable.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Brenda walked in. Cuddy took one look at her and picked up the phone to tell her assistant to get them two lattes and two cheese danish.

"What did he do?" Brenda asked.

"Greg's been using Vicodin," Cuddy said.

Brenda didn't look surprised. "The police had kept him in a cage since Friday night without painkillers, he was in pretty bad shape just from that. The nerve pain from the muscle damage must have come back a while ago. How did he get the Vicodin?"

"Doctor Wilson prescribed it," Cuddy said. "No, I didn't know either," she added, to Brenda's look. Greg had apparently been carrying a prescription bottle with a few pills in it. Wilson had given him unsupervised access.

Brenda sighed. "I gave Greg morphine and put him in one of the exam rooms. He's completely out of it, so he's not going anywhere, and I didn't see any physical damage that would need worse than bed rest. I'd suggest we confine him to the ward for 24 hours."

"He's not a slave any more," Cuddy reminded her.

Brenda looked abruptly startled. "I was going to say," she said, slowly. "Greg wasn't in the cage _all_ of the time. He couldn't have been, because there were definite signs he'd been used. There was bruising - "

"Detective Tritter says Greg resisted arrest."

Brenda shook her head. "Not that kind of bruising. Besides, Greg's not a slave any more. He wasn't 'used'. He was raped."

Hospital employees making use of Greg had been a perennial problem ever since he had been purchased. Greg had compounded the problem by failing to report employees who made use of him even when they committed vandalism or their use of him had broken hospital rules. In the end, Cuddy had simply set up a weekly rota in the clinic for a nurse to directly interview Greg and report any issues to Cuddy, or to the head of security if there had been vandalism.

A slave couldn't be raped. But Greg wasn't a slave any more.

"I called a criminal attorney I was recommended," Cuddy said, after a pause. "We may be able to file counter-charges. Greg is also charged with speeding, DUI, and driving without a license, also with illegal possession of narcotics."

"Does he _have_ a license for that bike?"

"Yes," Cuddy said. "A good attorney should be able to handle these charges. Unfortunately, the hospital can't pay or lend him the money - we're his patron - and Greg can't afford to pay. Under normal circumstances, as Detective Tritter told me, the freedman would be re-enslaved and sold to pay the costs of the case against him. Because Greg has a job working for his patron of record, he's been delivered to us in temporary custody so that we can continue to make use of his labor until the case comes to court."

The lattes and the pastries arrived. Brenda was silent. Finally, a bite into her pastry, she asked Cuddy "It might be simpler just to have him re-sold back to us."

Cuddy shook her head. "Greg has a valid prescription for the Vicodin and a valid license. Fill in a formal report on the damage done during the time he was in custody and we'll use that to argue away the 'resisting arrest' charges. That just leaves DUI and speeding, and the attorney thinks that as no damage is alleged, we'll be able to resolve those charges with a fine and an endorsement on his license. Depends on the judge. If he's re-sold he'll have to be processed via the Slave Administration Center, which would take a couple of months - and he could be sold at auction, which would mean we might not be able to afford to buy him again."

"Then what?"

"Doctor Wilson is going to lend Greg the costs of an attorney," Cuddy said. Nothing about the situation was funny, but when her eyes met Brenda, they both grinned.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Greg had a case - a six hundred pound patient in a coma - and Wilson had a lecture from Doctor Cuddy about prescribing to Greg without letting her know and letting Greg carry his own pills.

Wilson had _not_ let Greg carry his own pills - he'd had Greg on a regular, sensible schedule - but he supposed Greg could have cheeked them and saved them: Wilson hadn't been checking to make sure he swallowed.

"You want _me_ to pay for his attorney?" Wilson interrupted, when he realised where Cuddy was going.

"There are three alternatives," Cuddy said. "Either Greg is re-enslaved for debt, which is a waste of all your fundraising work and almost certainly a loss to this hospital, or you lend Greg the money on a schedule which the accountancy department will draw up for you, or Greg gets the money to pay his attorney somewhere else - do you have any suggestions where?"

Wilson shook his head. Part of him - a mean ashamed part - would have liked to see Greg in a collar again. "No," he said out loud. Most of him just wanted to keep the arrangement as it was and should be: Greg would give in, would realise how much he owed Wilson, how much he missed their relationship. "I'll need to talk with the attorney."

Cuddy handed him a slip of paper. The name and contact details were already written on it. "Best criminal attorney in Princeton."

Also, probably, the most expensive, Wilson thought glumly. He tucked the slip of paper away in his wallet.

"The hospital can't pay," Cuddy said. "And our lawyers have advised me that as hospital administrator, I _shouldn't_ pay, it's too close to the hospital paying. But informally, I can tell you that we can probably find a way of getting the money you're about to provide to Greg's attorney repaid to you..."

Wilson brightened.

"...next year." Cuddy looked sympathetic. "We can't afford to let it happen any sooner."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Greg still looked pale and was silent, when Wilson drove them both home. Wilson had spoken to the attorney over the phone, who'd confirmed what Cuddy had said.

The door to Wilson's apartment was open. Before he could think he'd been burgled, a uniformed policeman appeared. "Doctor Wilson?"

"Yes?" Wilson glanced at Greg, who was standing frozen, both hands planted on his cane.

"NJPD. We've been conducting a search of your apartment."

The apartment was no longer clean, tidy, and professional. Books were tossed on the floor, everything emptied out of the kitchen closets - and a big man standing in the middle of it all, looking around him as if he were thinking about buying it.

"What are you doing here?" Wilson asked.

"Executing a search of the premises," the man said. "Detective Michael Tritter. NJPD. Narcotics." He lifted an evidence bag. It was stuffed with prescription bottles. He stepped forward and showed Wilson the search warrant he held in his other hand. "When your slave got bailed out, before we could get a judge to approve this, I almost didn't bother. I thought for sure you'd spend the weekend throwing everything out. Rookie mistake."

"What?" Wilson stared at the bag.

"There's got to be over 600 vicodin in here," the detective said, "which most DA's would say proves intent to traffic. Even if all you'd really intended was simply to be wasted 24/7 while practicing medicine." He was chewing gum, and spoke slowly, calmly, without any visible anger.

"What?"

"In case you hadn't noticed," Greg said thinly, "Those are prescription bottles. Now I'd not an expert on linguistics per se but I think that means they were prescribed."

The detective's pale blue eyes turned on Greg. "I see spending a weekend in the cage hasn't humbled you a bit."

Greg's chin lifted. "While following my every move is flattering, a single rose on my doorstep each morning would be more enticing."

Wilson was still staring at the bag. He had not prescribed that many Vicodin. That wasn't trafficking amounts - that was suicidal amounts.

The detective shook the evidence bag. The pills rattled in the bottles. "All these were legally prescribed to a man who's in constant pain but never misses a day at work?" He was looking at Wilson again. "Now maybe just a few of these are in someone else's name. Forged prescription. Just swiped from the pharmacy when nobody's looking." He stepped closer to Wilson, a smug expression on his face. "You wouldn't do that, right?"

Greg had access to Wilson's prescription pad. He knew where Wilson kept it and he could present a prescription with Wilson's name signed to it. No one would question it even in PPTH: still less in that neighborhood pharmacy Wilson had seen on Sunday.

"I know he can be a real nuisance," Wilson said out loud, "And he has no problem lying when it serves him but he's not lying about the pain. He needs the medication which is why I prescribed it. All of it."

Fairly obviously, Greg had _not_ been dealing. He might have been thinking about killing himself, but that wasn't a police matter.

"I'll be bringing your boss up to speed, Doctor Wilson," the detective said.

"I'll let her know myself," Wilson said. He took the search warrant out of the detective's hand. He was genuinely angry, but the detective's insinuation was untenable. The search warrant was in order, as far as he could tell. He walked over to the front door. "Is there anything else you need to search? Then maybe you can leave."

The detective looked at him. Calmly, slowly, he nodded to the two uniformed police, and the three of them brushed by Greg. Tritter took the search warrant out of Wilson's hand. "I think working around a bunch of nurses has given you a false sense of your ability to intimidate," he said, in a tone of friendly advice.

Wilson shut the door. They must have got the building supervisor to let them in, he realised: the lock hadn't been forced.

"That idiot cop with crotch rot obviously thought that I didn't treat him with the deference due to a man of his stature. Trumped up a traffic stop," Greg said. He lifted his chin and met Wilson's eyes.

"You know," Wilson said, "I have to pay your attorney fees because Cuddy was angry with me for writing you a Vicodin prescription." His voice shook. He was beyond angry. "_A_ Vicodin prescription. Is my name on _all_ those prescriptions?"

"Apart from the ones I stole from the pharmacy," Greg said. "Oh relax," he added after a moment. "I wouldn't do that. So there's basically nothing they can do. You'll get your money back. Where am I going to take off to? Cuddy isn't going to let them put me in jail and lose my valuable ass from her hospital. The guy wanted to punish me, he's done it. It's over."

Wilson looked round his wrecked apartment. He was going to have to call the cleaning firm, ask them to make an emergency visit tomorrow. He was going to have to decide what he could tell Cuddy. He was going to have to talk to his own lawyer, since the pills had been found in his apartment, and the DEA was treating pain doctors as if they were drug dealers. He prescribed and provided medical marijuana to his patients sometimes - was he going to have to stop that while this investigation was going on?

"Just go to your room, Greg," he said. When Greg didn't move, Wilson caught his arm on the weak side, spun him round, and half dragged him to the door of the slave quarters. That too was a mess, he saw - all Greg's careful arrangements pulled apart. He pushed Greg inside. "Clean up in there."

He closed the door behind Greg, and locked him in.

_tba_

_As you can see - I haven't given up on CollarRedux! Sorry this is a short one, but I just couldn't fit patient-of-the-week in. More Tritter soon...  
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	7. Son of Coma Guy

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". First two seasons already on my profile and at the CollarVerse community. Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee...  
><em>

**3.07 Son of Coma Guy**

Kyle Wozniak liked visiting his father for lunch. It was quiet in the room, and dim, great when he had a hangover. He'd brought some wine, and a sandwich: he'd finished work for the day, and planned to spend the afternoon getting drunk.

In the ten years since Kyle had lost his parents, his father had moved steadily down through the hospital. His guardian used to bring him once a week, and leave him to sit by the bed for twenty minutes or half an hour. At first Kyle had been worried - supposing Dad woke up and was mad at him and no one else was there - and then he had been hopeful, and finally, he was just resigned. Now he could visit his dad whenever he wanted: and his dad couldn't stop him or try to avoid him.

The staff called this ward the Vegetable Ward. That didn't bother Kyle. They didn't come into the ward often - the nurses and aides and slaves to work on the patients, but not the doctors.

Not this time. A doctor he didn't know was standing over a slave he _did_ know. "Doctor House" had been the last doctor to attend his father, to try and figure out why he was in a persistent vegetative state, and if there was any way of bringing him out of it. The doctor looked mad.

"Joining my father for lunch," Kyle said cheerfully. "I should have called ahead for a table."

The doctor he didn't know looked round and spoke sharply. "Doctor House was just - "

"Enjoying a Reuben." This time, the slave had a sandwich, a bottle of water, and an apple. The doctor still looked mad, and Kyle just wanted him to go away. "It's okay. After ten years, anything that'll get doctors in the same room is..."

The slave had stood up and was switching the room lights off and on. The flickering light annoyed Kyle, made him clumsy: he interrupted himself. "What're you doing?"

"Nothing," the slave said. "Apple a day - " The apple came out of nowhere he hit Kyle on the chest. Kyle stared, confused, dizzy - "Want to see something really cool?" the slave asked, and vanished. He reappeared, still talking, much taller, at Kyle's elbow. He wasn't wearing a collar. His voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. "I saw you leaving last Tuesday; practically tripped over two guys on your way out. But you had no problem opening doors. It's called Akinetopsia. You can't see things when they move. And since you haven't been hit by a bus, I assume it's intermittent. Probably accompanied by seizures..."

The room vanished into a black, crackling nothingness. Kyle never felt the floor when he hit it.

When Kyle woke up, he was in an unfamiliar ward, being examined by three doctors he didn't know. He was in Diagnostics, they explained: he had had a seizure and Doctor House had admitted him. He wanted a drink.

"I can see fine now. I've had seizures before."

Kyle had a rehearsed speech when he was asked about a medical history: it saved time. He knew from his drinking buddies and from high school how outright strange it seemed to most people _not_ to have any close relatives.

"My father was an only child and my grandparents are dead. There's no one to contact in the event of an emergency."

Once he had put his guardian down as a contact, but since he'd turned 18 and could live off the insurance money, that seemed a waste of time. They didn't talk any more.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The last thing Gabe clearly remembered was running down the hall to the bedroom, hearing the fire licking up through the house. Kyle was outside. Kyle was safe. Linda was asleep, tonight was one of the nights she'd taken a pill, the air was so hot, he had to get to their bedroom...

He couldn't remember if he'd even opened the door.

Waking up, he knew Linda was dead. He didn't remember who'd told him.

"I want your ass in my office - " The voice, a woman's voice, broke off.

Not addressing him. No one would talk to him like that. The room was in a hospital, the sheets had that indefinable hospital-laundry smell. He blinked his eyes open - they felt gummy, as if he'd been asleep for a while.

His stomach felt empty. Literally _empty_, like he hadn't been fed in two days. "God, I'm starving."

He sat up. Besides the other patients - everyone was asleep - there were five people in the ward. Three of them were doctors. All of them were looking at him, looking startled, as if they hadn't expected him to wake up, even with all the yelling.

The other patients hadn't woken. It could be any time of the day in this bright, windowless room. The overhead TV was gabbling away about some hospital business. If it was the middle of the night, Gabe didn't think he could stand to wait til morning for some cold cereal.

"I could really go for a steak."

One of the non-doctors gave a sudden delighted grin that changed the whole expression of his face. Gabe looked back at him, confused. A hospital janitor - a freedman, by the mark on his neck.

The other non-doctor said "Do you know your name? Know where you are?"

"Gabriel Wasniak. I don't know the name of this hospital."

"How much are three and five?"

"Eight," Gabe said. An obvious test of his mental capacity. "Also known as half of sixteen, quarter of thirty-two, two to the third power." The woman looked like an executive, not a doctor, and she was the one who'd been shouting when he woke up, but the other doctors were still silent.

The janitor said, still smiling, "Coolest thing ever. Any history of seizure in your family?"

Gabe was startled. "No."

"Liver disease?"

Gabe looked at the doctors, wondering why the janitor was asking all the questions. What did liver disease have to do with a house fire? "No." He looked at the executive. "How long have I been here?" As he asked, he thought he didn't want to know the answer. "Got the feeling it's..." he hesitated. "...been a long time."

"Interesting. Your internal clock kept ticking. How deep does that awareness go? Pick up scraps of conversations, do you have a vague sense that - "

The janitor stopped talking. The executive had turned abruptly to glare at him.

"I know my wife is dead," Gabe said. "I don't know how long it's been." He looked at the doctors, at the executive. He knew it had been a long time.

"Ten years," the executive said, turning back to him. She had an awful, pitying tenderness in her voice. She paused. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"The fire." It felt like talking about something that happened a long time ago. "My wife was in the bedroom. She had taken a sleeping pill. I got Kyle out, went back in for her." Kyle was safe. "I knew I didn't make it."

"Sorry," the executive said. She still hadn't introduced herself.

"How about your wife's side of the family?" the janitor asked. Gabe glanced at him. A freedman. He wasn't acting particularly subdued. None of the three doctors had said anything, yet. Was he actually awake? He _felt_ awake.

"Any history of seizures there?" the janitor prodded.

"Your son, Kyle, is a patient here," the executive said. "I'm afraid his condition is serious. He may be dying."

For the first time, it occurred to Gabe that Kyle wasn't twelve anymore. The boy he remembered. The man - ten years? - Twenty-two? - would have finished college, would - dying? - This could still be a dream. If he got the steak, if he could feel it in his mouth, taste it, chew it, it wasn't dream. His son was gone from him into adulthood and he had never met him.

"No seizure issues on my wife's side either. What about that steak? Nobody ever answered me."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Wilson was eating lunch in the cafeteria when Greg limped in. Doctor Kubisak from Ob-Gyn was going out and they all but bumped into each other: Wilson watched as Greg sidestepped, lurched, and his cane slid - Greg kept his balance, just, but Kubisak stumbled over the cane and nearly fell.

Kubisak snarled something at Greg that wasn't very understandable, but Greg's response was clear across the room. "Technically not true... yeah, but not with _you_."

Wilson glanced down at his lunch, hiding an involuntary smile. When he glanced up again, Greg was limping across the room, moving quite briskly, heading for his table.

Greg sat down at the table with Wilson. "What would it take for you to buy me a steak?"

"You want me to buy you lunch?" Wilson was interested. "What was that with Kubisak?"

Greg gave him a grimace. "Guess. He wouldn't buy me a steak. Too cheap. You?"

"Is it true you woke up the coma patient?"

"Vegetative state guy," Greg corrected. "My patient lost consciousness. I needed a better patient history."

Wilson's mouth fell open. "You'll get whipped," he said automatically, feeling the old stirring of excitement.

Greg bared his teeth. It wasn't a smile.

"Keep track, Doctor Wilson. Freed doctors can't get strung up and whipped. You have to have some other way of getting your jollies. So, what do you want for a steak dinner?"

"You want me to buy you lunch, in exchange for...?"

"Blow job?" Greg offered. He was staring at Wilson warily. "I figure the steak in the hospital canteen isn't worth more."

Wilson went back to eating his lunch, trying to act calm. "So, what happened?"

"I figured his brain's all there, he moves around, muscles have barely atrophied, he was just waiting for a fairy-tale kiss. After I did that, I stuck a needle in him and gave him a bunch of amphetamines and other stuff and he woke up. Now he wants a steak, before I can ask him any more questions."

"He doesn't _want_ to talk about his son?" Wilson was surprised.

"Didn't seem to emotionally register that his son is sick."

"Brain issue? He was asphyxiated. Spent ten years as asparagus. Who knows what damage is in there?"

Greg nodded. "It's possible. Of course always the simple explanation. Maybe he just doesn't like his son."

The diagnostic patient was in his early twenties, so for his father, unconscious for ten years, he was about twelve. Wilson was amused by what Greg thought of as a "simple" explanation, and said so, finishing a bite of his lunch.

Greg bared his teeth again. "The delusion that fathering a child installs a permanent geyser of unconditional love - "

"Maybe your father's feelings were conditional, not everyone's - "

"Yes," Greg cut him off. "Well, that's a romantic view of human nature - "

"Terms you would understand. We have an evolutionary incentive to sacrifice for our offspring, our tribe, our friends. Keep them safe."

"Except for all the people who don't," Greg said, flatly. "Everything is conditional. You just can't always anticipate the conditions. Which brings us back to - what condition will you set for buying vegetative state dad a steak?"

Wilson smiled. He had made up his mind. "Well, you certainly deserve to be disciplined, don't you?"

Greg seemed to hesitate. "Two," he said, flatly.

"Four," Wilson said. He let that sink in a moment. "Obviously, it can wait till you're done with this case."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Cameron had realised House was using painkillers a while ago. She hadn't discussed it with Chase or Foreman.

She hadn't expecting to be questioned about it by a plainclothes policeman. House had reappeared on Monday lunchtime as if just from the clinic, walking stiffly, expressionless, and explosively sarcastic: hospital rumour (via Foreman) said he'd spent the weekend in jail.

"How many pills would you say Greg takes a day?" The policeman had introduced himself as Michael Tritter and shown his badge. He had already spoken to Doctor Cuddy. His investigations shouldn't be discussed with anyone else.

"Doctor House," Cameron corrected him. "I'm uncomfortable saying a number."

"Try," the policeman said. He had the coldest eyes Cameron had ever seen.

"Six," Cameron said. She thought it _was_ probably six: Greg had been on a morning and evening schedule, and now that his painkiller regimen was more under his control, she guessed he would take a couple in the middle of the day.

"Six a day?" Tritter said.

Cameron nodded.

"Have you ever written prescriptions for him?"

"No," Cameron said. "Doctor Wilson is his prescribing physician."

Tritter nodded. "Are you sure it's just six pills?"

"What is it you want me to say? That he takes too many pills and is a danger to the hospital?"

"If he was, would you tell me?" Tritter asked.

"If I had concerns, I would discuss them with Doctor Wilson or Doctor Cuddy," Cameron said. "I don't."

"Do you know why Greg was enslaved?" Tritter asked.

"Selling pills on the side?" Cameron asked sarcastically.

"Doctor House was a drunk, a drug addict, and an addictive gambler," Tritter said. "He lost control of his life completely. He belonged in a collar, under control. Now he's been freed, but can you really say he's any different from before? You had a slave as your boss. Now you have a freed slave. What has he done to deserve your loyalty?"

Cameron's beeper went off. Chase had paged her. "I've got to go."

"Tell Doctor Chase I'll be talking to him next," Tritter said, as if he had seen the number on her pager. Unsettled, Cameron escaped.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The ward was for people who weren't expected to wake up, and both the executive and the janitor were doctors, though Doctor Cuddy didn't explain why a doctor was marked with a slave collar and the janitor doctor House had disappeared as soon as Gabe made clear he wouldn't be answering any questions til he had eaten.

Doctor Cuddy told him, as gently as anyone could tell you something like that - he'd be going back to sleep again in twenty-four hours or so. The cocktail of drugs that the janitor doctor had injected him with was experimental and known to be temporary.

A nurse had found him a small mirror, and brought his old clothes from somewhere. They'd been laundered and smelled of hospital soap and didn't fit, bagging and flopping everywhere.

A ward orderly had brought him a meal - basic, bland food, but the flavors seemed astonishing, and it didn't take much to fill him up.

Gabe looked morosely at a man who seemed to be more than ten years older than himself as he remembered: his hair had greyed and thinned, the flesh on his neck had drooped and slackened, giving him a double-chin effect. Whoever had shaved him when he was unconscious had left stubble.

Doctor House came in. He still looked like a janitor. But he was carrying a tray with a steak dinner, so provisionally, Gabe decided not to be mad at him.

"Your barber sucks," Gabe said. He had been fingering the unaccustomed flesh of his double chin, but it was less embarrassing to complain about the stubble than about growing suddenly old. Somewhere in this hospital was his dying grown-up son.

"I know," Doctor House said, putting the tray of food down on the empty bed and folding the table out.

"'Coma diet'," Gabe said. He was thin as well as old. "I could make a fortune."

"'Vegetative State Diet'," Doctor House corrected him. "Who gave you your clothes?"

"Doctor Cuddy." She'd ordered them found when Gabe had asked for them. He didn't want to spend his last 24 hours sitting around in hospital pyjamas. He asked a test question. "I guess I'll need all new ones anyway. Everything went in the fire."

"Don't worry about it," the janitor doctor said smoothly. "We use recyclable clothes now. Wear them once, then eat them. Your son's measles vaccination, d'you remember if he had it and what type it was?"

"You're a piece of work, you know that?" Gabe concluded. Doctor Cuddy had told him - and Gabe hadn't really believed - that Doctor House had woken him up (without notifying anyone else, she was very clear it wasn't the hospital's fault) purely and simply because he wanted an accurate medical history for Kyle, and Gabe was the only living person who would know it.

Doctor House sighed.

"You weren't going to tell me, were you?" Gabe said. He hadn't told Doctor Cuddy he didn't intend to sue: if she was right that his body would adjust to the drugs (and all the other bodies in this ward indicated that there was no new magic cure): if she was right that meant he'd be a vegetable again by tomorrow - or if he was really lucky, the day after - then he wasn't going to waste his time on lawyers or janitor-doctors. He had one day to live.

He wasn't hungry for the steak dinner janitor-doctor had brought. He wanted to get out of this ward, to get out of this hospital, to spend his last day smelling the ocean, eating a hoagie, seeing open roads and open water instead of the walls of this basement room and his adult son dying somewhere out of sight.

The coat wasn't his: but it fitted him, more or less. Probably left behind by some dying patient. Gabe checked the pockets, hoping for loose change. He'd have to brace Doctor Cuddy again for some money, point out that the law firm who'd handled his business would still be around if he cared to make trouble -

"C'mon, where are you going to go?" Janitor-doctor was eyeing him, apparently having realized that he wasn't going to eat the steak. "House burned down, your wife's dead, business is sold off. The only thing you have left is down the hall, heading for a liver biopsy."

That was none of this guy's business. "I want a hoagie," Gabe said. "Used to be this little hole in the wall, run by a guy named Giancarlo. Made the best hoagies in the world. Real Italian rolls. Prosciutto, provolone. Mmm. How far is Atlantic City from here?"

"You have one day to live," janitor-doctor said flatly, "and you want a sandwich."

"People on death row get a last meal," Gabe said.

"State provides it. Who's providing for you? You got a car? Money?"

Now that made him more interesting. Gabe smiled. "You're negotiating with me."

"You're in Princeton," janitor-doctor said. "Atlantic City's about ninety miles away. I know a guy with a car could drive us both there. Buy you a hoagie. Get a medical history."

Why don't you have a car? Gabe nearly asked. And then he looked at the mark on the man's neck. He'd employed freed slaves, they were good value, worked hard, could be paid lower wages, were happy to live in dorms on site. They didn't own cars.

How did a doctor end up a slave? Gabe realised he was curious: road trip, ocean air, lights of Atlantic City, a good hoagie and what had to be a good story. How else could he spend the last day of his life?

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Chase had no intention of arguing with an American cop. Not even when they came as polite as Michael Tritter.

Cameron had told them House was back on painkillers, this time self-administered: Chase didn't tell her he already knew. The trash from the offices got bagged early each morning by a slave, and after Chase had spotted certain physical indications, he'd arranged to work a night shift in ER and searched the Diagnostics and neighboring office trash cans on his three am coffee break.

The little yellow prescription bottles were authorized by Doctor James Wilson. Chase found an empty container in a trash can between Diagnostics and the elevator, hidden under an empty coffee cup and a sandwich wrapper: a half-full one (assuming a standard prescription fill) tucked away between the desk and the wall, and a full, still sealed prescription container inside the textbook on lupus. Literally inside: Greg had cut away some of the pages.

Wilson was over-supplying Greg, or Greg had got hold of Wilson's prescription pad and was over-securing his supply. Cameron said she'd told the detective she knew House took six pills a day. Chase guessed it was more than that, and probably Cameron did too. But Greg understood far better than any of them the hazards of being addicted, and of being in thrall to Wilson as his supplier. Chase had no intention of arguing with American law enforcement, but he'd also decided that officially, he knew only what he had medically guessed: it wasn't technically a doctor's job to search the trash.

"How many pills does he take a day?" Tritter asked again, very gently. He was a big man and he spoke quietly, gently: but his eyes were hard and cold.

"It's hard to say," Chase told him. "Pain levels vary all the time. Could be six, eight... ten." Ten was the maximum dose Chase would have considered safe for House.

"Ever write any prescriptions for him?" Tritter asked.

"No," Chase said. He was on safe ground now.

"Why not?"

"I've never been asked to," Chase said.

"If you were told to write a prescription for Greg, would you do it?"

"If I was asked," Chase corrected him. "If in my medical judgment the prescription was required, yes, I would."

"And in your medical judgment, Greg needs painkillers?"

"Yes. I'm an intensivist," Chase added. From Tritter's slow nod, he already knew, and Chase felt like a fool. "Doctor House has a chronic pain problem. He needs painkillers to stay functional."

"Medicine attracts people who are attracted to power," Tritter said. "Greg was a doctor before he was collared, and he functioned as a doctor here when he was a slave, correct?" He shook his head sympathetically. "I saw how Greg hates being defied by a patient. I doubt he handles defiance from his staff any better - especially not as you are all free, and he was a slave. Now you correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Greg now _asks_ for anything. I think he takes it. And I think that you are stuck, lying to the police, to cover up something you didn't want to do."

Chase shook his head. He was bitterly annoyed and amused. "I have never written a prescription for Doctor House."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Janitor-doctor came back. He was wearing an old coat and a scarf. "Too high a price on the car," he said. "There's an Italian deli across the park. I hear they do hoagies. Let's go."

Outside the air was fresh, chilly for October. Except it was mid-November. There was a newsstand just outside the hospital and Gabe stopped there, ostensibly to check out the M&Ms. The night his son had tried to make popcorn and dropped the shovel, Halloween had been three days off. Now it was already November. "I missed the election," Gabe said. Linda would have cared. She always voted. Gabe didn't bother half the time.

"You missed six elections," janitor-doctor said. "If you count midterms."

"What was wrong with the old colors?" Gabe asked, pointing at a bag of M&Ms. "I trusted brown. Do the purple ones have chocolate inside?"

"Raspberry cocaine," janitor-doctor said. "This house that burned down. Where was it?"

"Morristown, New Jersey. Listen, I really need to know about the candy, because I'm allergic to berries." He took the bag and looked expectantly at janitor-doctor.

"You didn't mention that," janitor-doctor said, paying for the M&Ms with a new twenty-dollar note and an odd, slightly pleased smile.

"Is it significant?" Gabe asked. He pulled open the bag and picked out M&Ms, avoiding the puple ones.

"No." They crossed the road. "So, where else did you live? List everywhere, including vacations. Start with when your wife got pregnant."

"We lived in Jersey," Gabe said. He was enjoying the chocolate. "Then we moved to Jersey; from there, Jersey. What, are you waiting to hear about the little cottage in the Amazon, with the mosquitoes and the lead paint all over the walls?"

He glanced at janitor-doctor, caught him nodding, "Yes."

Beautiful day. Kyle dying in hospital behind them. There was nothing he could do. Gabe swallowed, tucking the rest of the M&Ms away in his coat pocket, and said sarcastically, "You know what? I didn't let you come along so you could suck all the fun out of my one day of life."

"Well, you're out of luck, 'cause that's totally why I'm here."

"Okay. Rule change," Gabe said.

The same odd, faint smile, as if something intensely private had pleased him, flitted across the janitor-doctor's face. "Person with the money makes the rules," he said.

"Well, you want answers more than I want money," Gabe said. The park was lovely, the sun was shining, the sky was an intense autumn blue, and Gabe felt like he could walk forever. He didn't even really care if he got an hoagie at the end of it. "Right, so, here's the game. Ask whatever you want. But for every question I answer, you have to answer one first."

Janitor-doctor looked genuinely confused. "Why would you care about anything I have to say?"

Because you're a puzzle, Gabe thought, but didn't say. You're the most interesting man I'm ever going to meet for the rest of my waking life.

"The day before I died, I was a successful man. I had a factory with over two hundred employees. People listened when I talked. I liked power. Now, the only power I have left is the power to annoy you."

He turned and walked off, and heard janitor-doctor limp after him.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Foreman answered the phone: he got Greg's voice, talking to someone else. "...explains the seizures. The liver's like a big soup-strainer. Soup drains through, chicken dumplings stay. For soup read blood, for chicken dumplings..."

Whoever Greg was talking to must have said something, but Greg went right on talking "...sits more or less idle until your kid pours tequila shooters into his liver. When the liver goes, takes out his kidneys - explains everything."

"You're saying this was _my_ fault?" That came through clear and morose: Greg must be interviewing Kyle's dad, somewhere.

"Doctor House," Foreman said. He put Greg on the speakerphone, glancing up at Cameron and Chase.

"Yeah, it's me," Greg said. "Foreman, draw blood, test for mercury poisoning. Chase, start heavy-metal chelation while we're waiting for results."

They all looked up then: The detective Michael Tritter was leaning in the doorway, looking at Foreman. Cops had a thousand ways to make life miserable for you.

"Kyle's liver's just managing to hang in there. He's still sliding into coma," Chase said, sounding like he was trying too hard to sound normal. Greg would pick up on that.

"Yes," Greg said, "what part of start the treatment _now_ did you find hard to understand?"

"Why mercury poisoning?" Cameron asked.

"Dad built boats. Took his kid to work. Mercury-based mildew-resistant paint on the hulls. What kid wears a mask?"

"Okay," Foreman said, to Greg and to Tritter. The phone shut off at Greg's end before Foreman ended the call. Foreman stood up. "You heard the man, Cameron, draw blood, test for mercury poisoning." He looked at Tritter. "Should we go somewhere to talk?"

Doctor Cuddy had assigned a room to Tritter. Foreman had been figuring out what to say. Chase and Cameron might think the best of Greg: but he was a junkie. He had been enslaved because he lost control of his life. Now Cuddy and Wilson were letting him have narcotics on a demand schedule, and this was not a good plan _for an addict_, but Greg clearly needed the narcotics to function.

Foreman didn't sit down, though Tritter gestured to a chair. "Greg is an ass. But he obviously needs pain medication. How much pain one person feels is not a call the government should be making."

The cop looked interested. "So you think I'm a bureaucrat with a badge, following some arbitrary guideline?"

Foreman waited a moment to give the appearance of considering that suggestion. "Yeah. I do."

"So you're saying I should... just trust him." The cop almost smiled. "Do you?"

Of course not. Foreman wasn't going to tell the cops that. Greg's pain medication was a medical problem, to be handled by doctors. "You're not qualified to make..."

"I'm not sure you are either," the cop interrupted, pleasantly. "I've been a cop for twenty years. I worked at the slave processing center before that. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't try to sell me some self-serving story."

Foreman nodded. "Is that all? We're in the middle of a case."

"If you had my job, you'd know," the cop said. "Everybody lies."

That was Greg's mantra - the underlying principle of diagnostics. He'd written it in his first paper on the speciality, which Foreman had read in medical school, before he knew Doctor Gregory House was a slave. Hearing it come back at him from the tall white cold-eyed cop was... disconcerting.

Greg didn't appear. No one around the hospital had seen him in hours. He answered his phone when Foreman called to tell him, "It's not his liver. It's the heart. Patient's BP just dropped like a stone."

Even over the phone, Foreman could hear Greg's mind racing. "Do an echo. Mercury isn't likely to damage the..."

"It didn't." Cameron had the results back from the lab. "Mercury test was negative."

Greg sounded very grim. "Do an echo."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

There was a little group of picnic tables not far from a playground. The deli's hoagies didn't taste as good as the ones Gabe remembered from Giancarlo's hole in the wall, but they were pretty good, and his coffee was excellent.

House had called the hospital twice on the cellphone, and the second time he looked more and more grim, spitting out finally "Do an echo" and hanging up.

"I was wrong," House said. "Your son's still dying. I need to go over every relative you ever had again. This time, forget their diseases, just tell me how they died. We don't have time to take turns." He opened the free newspaper he'd picked up to a page with a lot of white space, and pulled a pen out of his pocket: it looked like one of the souvenir pens the deli sold, though Gabe hadn't noticed House buying it. "Give me the answers, you get a big one at the end. Go for whatever you want."

Most of Linda's family had been accident-prone drunks. Gabe hadn't liked any of them. He hadn't wanted Kyle to hang out with his cousins. Mostly when they heard from Linda's aunts and uncles and cousins it was about funerals, stupid careless deaths.

Kyle was dying. Gabe lifted his head and looked at the hospital, far across the other side of the park. He could go back there, he could sit uselessly by his son's bed, until he himself drifted away again. He was losing feeling in his hands and feet: it was beginning already, drifting back into the somewhere sleep.

"How did your son dislodge the tinder?" House asked.

"He dropped the popcorn tray. He had been complaining it was too heavy. I should have listened."

"And the hit-and-run, walking the pissy dog. That happen at night?"

I think so, yeah. Why?"

"Car accident after the Phillies lost. Night game?"

Gabe nodded. House's eyes were very wide. His mouth dropped open. He looked like he had been hit with something. He pulled out his cellphone, fumbling it, and began jabbing numbers, talking all the time. "Ragged Red Fiber. It's an inherited condition. Dropping things, muscle weakness, poor night-vision. These people seem uncoordinated and accident-prone. Careless. It's transmitted in mitochondrial DNA, so it only passes through the mother. Your wife's family weren't drunks, they were sick."

"Foreman." The voice from the phone was so urgent, so loud, that Gabe hurt it.

"Test his DNA for Ragged Red Fiber," House said.

Whatever this guy Foreman said, House frowned sharply. "Here's a thought. Why don't we not assume that the test is negative 'til we actually do it."

"House." The voice came through loud and clear again. "The kid has severe cardiomyopathy. Alcoholic and no shot at a transplant. So yeah, maybe you figured out why. Good for you, but he's going to die anyway."

"I want to give Kyle my heart," Gabe said, abruptly.

House stared at him. "You're not dead yet."

Gabe tried to pick up his coffee cup. His hand was trembling, the fingers refusing to close. "I might as well be." He nodded. "We'll go back to the hospital and I'll tell them I want to give Kyle my heart. This ragged red thing is from his mother, my heart's fine."

"I can tell you what Doctor Cuddy will say if we ask her," House said, after a moment. His voice went up a little, a mocking sing-song. "He isn't near death. He's saying 'Kill me and cut out my heart'. Are you out of your mind?"

"What if I kill myself?" Gabe said. They both looked at the road.

House shook his head. "Too much risk of survival. They're bound to keep you alive, if they can." He swallowed. "But, there is a way. You can..." He swallowed again. "You can give Kyle your heart. But we don't have time to go back to the hospital. We'll need to get a cab. I'll make the calls from the cab. If you're willing."

Gabe stood up. His feet were numb. He looked back across the park, realizing that he wasn't even sure he could walk that far any more.

"Okay," he said. "Where are we going?"

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The cab driver insisted on seeing the cash for the fare, once he heard their destination, and then he grunted "Okay," and didn't speak again. But Gabe saw his eyes on them in the mirror.

"My turn," Gabe said.

House looked at him. Shrugged.

"Why did you become a slave?"

"That's the big question? I give you complete license to humiliate me and that's the best you can do?" House was also watching the cab driver's face in the mirror; he would be coming back. "Well, okay. One day, I ran out of money. Then I got a letter from the nice people at the Slave Administration Centers. Then I went on a bender, and I woke up with fancy new jewellery on my neck."

"No," Gabe said. "Why? You were a doctor _before_ you got enslaved - if you were able to work, you could have cut a deal. Slavery's the last resort for debt collection."

"Maybe I was _at_ the last resort," House said.

"I doubt it," Gabe said. "You're a smart guy. You could have found a way out. Why didn't you?"

House stared out of the window. "I had a patient. She died. I was in a _lot_ of debt," he said. "Medical school... I got kicked out of two medical schools, I lost - I can't remember how many scholarships. Plus, I liked betting. Horses, mostly. I liked watching a horse race, I liked it even better when I had some money on board. Poker. I figured out what was wrong with my patient, but I couldn't prove it, I wasn't supposed to treat her, but I did anyway. I was better at poker than horses. I'd been making my beer money in college on poker games. The debts kept getting bigger. When I won, I won big. I was on a losing streak, and because I'd treated the patient when I wasn't supposed to, I got hauled in for a telling off. I was drunk. I was right, but the patient died anyway. I insulted my boss, and the Dean, and the hospital, and I got fired. I couldn't get another job. There was a conference I was due to go to in New Orleans, I had to give a presentation there, I'd have got hired at the conference - but my debts came due first. I don't think I'd been sober since my patient died."

"Your parents... were they dead? They couldn't help you?"

House looked at him. His face looked ghastly in the street lights and the shadows of the cab. He bared his teeth. It wasn't a smile. "As far as I know," he said "both of my parents are still alive."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

The phone call came in from a cellphone, but the doctor's voice gave all the right details and the administrator was able to confirm them with the hospital.

New Jersey Slave Administration Center was a busy center, but this was not a commonplace event.

The two men arrived in a cab: the doctor identified himself.

"We will do our own medical tests," the administrator told the other man.

"You'll have to do them in a hurry if any of them involve making him run on a treadmill," the doctor said.

"Do you have any preference?"

"All I want," the other man said, slowly. He was leaning on the counter. "Make sure my son gets my heart."

"That is all on these forms. You need to sign them, then we print your fingers and your retinas."

The doctor had picked up the forms and was reading through them. "All clear," he said to the other man, and pointed to the paragraph which specified the heart recipient. "They're asking you how you want them to do it. They won't ask you after you sign. Pills are the simplest. Hanging has less chance of damaging the heart."

There was a pause. The other man looked down at the forms, at the pen. He looked as if he was thinking about it. "I'm okay with pain."

"Strangulation's better than breaking your neck," the doctor said. "Which means this'll be slow." He produced a bottle of aspirin from his pocket and opened it, handing it to the other man. "Take these: it'll reduce trauma to the heart in transit."

For a moment, the adminstrator thought the other man meant to kill himself in the foyer, which - while legal - would have been an administrative headache. But the other man took four aspirin, and handed the bottle back. His hands wouldn't close properly, and the counter was all that was keeping him upright, the administrator noted. This would be easy. It was legal for a terminal patient to sell themselves into slavery for medical research, then will organs from the cadaver to chosen recipients. Sometimes people cheated. This looked okay, though.

"Tell him..." The other man said, and paused. "I don't know what to tell him." He sighed. "I think it's my turn to ask a question, isn't it?"

"I don't think so. Because you asked me where we were going, back at the park."

The guards were waiting - a specially chosen pair, for a terminal slave. The processing wouldn't be the same. But it was often upsetting, even knowing the slave had chosen this when free, to have to put even a slave to death.

The two men were looking at each other as if there was no one else there. The doctor shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"If you could hear one thing from your father, what would it be?"

"It wouldn't help you."

"Try me," the other man said.

The doctor said, "I'd want him to say, 'You were right. You did the right thing'."

The other man smiled. He picked up the pen. His handwriting was clumsy, but the prints and retina scans would make it legal. As he scrawled his name, he said to the doctor, "Yeah, it doesn't help."

The administrator finished the procedures. They cuffed the new slave, but didn't collar him. He didn't say anything more in the administrator's hearing as the guards took him away.

"The procedure will be carried out in twenty minutes to an hour, depending how long the medical tests take to perform," the administrator notified the doctor. "We've already spoken to the organ collection team. I assure you that all medical procedures will be promptly and effectively carried out."

The doctor nodded. He turned away from the desk, and pulled out his cellphone. "Wilson? Case is over. Deal's on. Need a ride."

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

Greg had stolen fifty dollars from Wilson's wallet, but that wasn't even what Wilson was furious about. The Diagnostics patient was getting a heart transplant from his father, who had sold himself into slavery for medical research: Greg had evidently instigated and prompted this, and he'd used Wilson's money to get both of them to the Slave Administration Center.

Cuddy was unqualifiedly furious - it looked very bad for the hospital, to have a coma patient wake up, walk out with a doctor, and end being carved up freshly dead. Wilson felt an appalled empathy for Greg: he knew that sometimes patients just decide to die, and in a strange way, the coma patient had been Greg's patient too. He had meant to say something sympathetic when he picked Greg up, save the fight til tomorrow, but Greg had looked at him without reaction.

Greg now sat huddled against the door on the passenger side, head down, ignoring Wilson.

"Did you know Detective Tritter was talking to your team while we were away?" Wilson asked.

"Yeah," Greg said, after a long moment.

"Which one of them told you?" Wilson asked, interested.

Greg lifted his cell phone. "All of them. Which means that none of them said anything that I have to worry about."

"You stole fifty dollars from me," Wilson said.

"Take it out on my ass," Greg said flatly. "We already agreed two. What's fifty bucks worth? Another four? Five?"

"That's actually the least of my worries," Wilson said. "There's a hold on my accounts." He paused. Greg didn't react. Wilson spelled it out. "My accounts have been frozen as part of a police investigation."

Greg shrugged. "They can't keep your money forever."

"It turns out," Wilson said, "that because of all the prescriptions _you_ stole, Tritter has convinced the NJPD that _I'm_ dealing. They can keep my accounts frozen until they prove otherwise."

"Right," Greg said. He turned to look at Wilson and bared his teeth. "Because you told the cops you _did_ sign the prescriptions, you can't go back on that now or you'd go to jail for perjury and obstruction of justice. And the police don't have a case unless they can prove that either I got the drugs illegally or you sold them illegally. You lied about the first, and you haven't done the second." He paused. "Have you?"

"Of course not," Wilson exploded. His hands clenched on the wheel. "I lied. To the cops. They'd take your license to practice medicine and then they'd sell you again!"

"Yeah," Greg said. "You think _my_ addiction is out of control? You just can't get enough of beating my sorry ass." He paused. "Important thing is you keep prescribing the same amount of drugs to me. Or it'll look suspicious."

"Here's another way to look at it." Wilson was so angry his voice sounded strange in his own ears. "Having forced me to lie to the police, your first concern is securing your drug-connection!"

Greg shrugged. He turned to look out of the window again.

_*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*housemd*_

They told Kyle Wozniak his father was dead when he woke up in the clean room afterwards. He had lost consciousness when his dad was still alive: it hardly seemed real that the breathing body in the bed had got up, walked, talked, decided to will Kyle his heart, and died.

It hardly seemed real that there was now no one to visit, at all. Doctor House told him about ragged-red fiber, treatable if not curable. About his prospects as a heart transplant patient.

"That can't be all," Kyle said.

"Well, you got a heart out of it. How many organs do you want from the guy?"

"I mean, my father must have said something. He couldn't just... he must have given you some kind of a message for me."

Doctor House stared at him for a moment. "He said you were right. You did the right thing."

"Right about what?" Kyle was confused. "What does that mean?"

"How should I know? He's your dad."

Alone, Kyle wept.

**_tba_**

_I should stop apologising for how long each chapter takes! It doesn't help. To coin a phrase! But the story will continue. Promise! If you liked it, leave a comment!  
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